“The Flash,” the long-awaited DC origin story of Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) a.k.a. The Flash, echoes all the all the stuff we expect from a big superhero tentpole movie. There are multiple universes, multiple superheroes and, once again, the world is in danger but it is the title character’s emotional life that sets this movie apart from the pack.
Loosely based on the “Flashpoint” comics, the movie sees Barry still grieving the death of his mother (Maribel Verdú) and his father’s (Ron Livingston) wrongful incarceration for her murder. Fueled by pain and rage, he finds a way to potentially ease his anguish when he discovers his superspeed gives him the ability to create a “chronobowl” and travel back to the day his mother was killed.
“I could save people,” he says. “I could save my mom.”
Before setting off to right the wrongs of the past, he consults with Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) who warns him against messing with the fabric of time. “You could destroy everything.”
Ignoring Batman’s advice, Barry travels to the past and soon pays the price for his impulsive actions. Caught in an alternate universe where a younger version of himself doesn’t yet have superpowers—“This is my face,” his doppelganger says. “You stole my face.”—Barry soon realizes he is in uncharted territory. “This can’t be happening,” he says. “I completely broke the universe.”
Things go from bad to worse when Kryptonian supervillain General Zod (Michael Shannon) makes the scene, loaded with ill will for all of humanity. “This world must die,” he says.
Having changed the past and potentially the future, Barry teams with alternate universe Batman (Michael Keaton) and Kara Zor-El, a.k.a. Supergirl (Sasha Calle) to restore order. “If I can’t undo what I did, if I can’t get back” he says, “there may not be a future.”
“The Flash” finds a balance between fan service and a story for general audiences. Origin stories can be nightmares, filled with endless exposition and scene setting, but, for the most part, director Andy Muschietti keeps things moving along. Perhaps not with his star’s superspeed, but at a good clip. You don’t need a roadmap to follow the multiverse aspect, so ever-present in superhero movies nowadays, and Barry’s personal story is both entertaining and emotional.
Part of that is the casting. Miller is wonderfully cast as the title character. He brings both a well-defined silliness and deep inner life to his dual portrayal of Barry as both an adult and a teenager. I can’t tell whether a crack he delivers early on to a victim of a large scale disaster—”You should seek the help of a mental professional,” he says. “The Justice League is not very good at that… trust me.”—is meta, given Miller’s recent, very public issues, or if it is wildly inappropriate. Either way, it is the film’s only reference to Miller’s well-reported off-screen behavior, and a rare misstep in the film’s carefully crafted first half.
It’s when the movie becomes larger and louder that it loses some of its charm. The appearance of Zod, complete with some dodgy CGI, raises the stakes but shifts focus from the film’s heart and soul, which is Barry’s quest to save his mother. The big showdown is a staple in superhero movies, but “The Flash” works best when it is character driven. In this case, bigger is not always better.
Oversized or not, “The Flash” is entertaining with nice little details, like how Barry has to eat high calorie food to fuel his superspeed and a wild baby shower. Literally, a shower of babies falling from the sky. As a buddy movie—Barry and Barry are an odd couple of a sort—it gets dark without surrendering to the ennui that has cast its shade over so many of the other DC movies.
The result is a film that provides action, warmth and nostalgia—It’s worth the price of admission to hear Keaton say, “Yup. I’m Batman.”—and a few genuine surprises (NO SPOILERS HERE!).
The first instalment of “It,” Stephen King’s scary clown epic, was about overcoming fears. Specifically, the shape-shifting Pennywise the Dancing Clown a.k.a. It (Bill Skarsgård), the manifestation of all the character’s fears. The new film, inventively titled “It: Chapter Two,” is about resilience, about sticking your neck out for your friends.
The new one is set in 2016, twenty-seven years after the preteen Loser’s Club battled Pennywise in his sewers lair and kept the town of Derry, Maine safe from the child gobbling monster. Now, the childhood friends have gone their separate ways. Loser’s leader Bill (James McAvoy) is now a successful mystery novelist. Sexual abuse survivor Beverly (Jessica Chastain) went on to become a fashion designer, while Ben (Jay Ryan), the overweight, bullied kid is now an architect living in Nebraska and loud-mouth Richie (Bill Hader) is a DJ in Los Angeles. Other members fled town as well. Hypochondriac Eddie (James Ransone) runs a NYC limousine company and Stanley (Andy Bean) is now an Atlanta-based accountant.
Only Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) stayed in Derry. Traumatized by the events of his youth he battles a substance abuse problem but stays on top of Pennyworth’s existence by sleeping next to a police scanner. “Something happens when you leave this town,” says Mike. “The farther away, the hazier it all gets. But me, I never left. I remember all of it.” When trouble in the form of a clown comes back to town Mike summons the others Losers to come back home to conquer their fears, bond together and do battle with their old foe. “Did you miss me?” taunts Pennywise. “No one wants to play with me anymore.”
At almost three hours “It: Chapter Two” is an overindulgent mish mash, part horror, a splash of comedy and heaping helping of pop psychology. Oh, and a clown. To say the movie takes it’s time is an understatement along the lines of suggesting Pennnywise floss more often. It almost feels like you’re binging several episodes of a serialized version of the story without the benefit of being able to switch channels when the going gets repetitive.
And it gets repetitive. We are endlessly reminded of the character’s childhood traumas, told of Pennywise’s evil and if someone said to me, “We’ve got to stick together,” as many times Bill says it here, I would make a run for it and never look back. The movie says it best when Ritchie exasperatedly says, “We’re caught up, OK!” over an hour in, and yet the exposition and repetition continues.
There are several striking nightmarish images and Hader provides some much-needed comic relief but it feels as though director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman regarded King’s novel as some sort of sacred text and where unable to stray from the written word. One of the enjoyable things about King’s novels are there world building, his attention to detail and skill for weaving mythology into real(ish) world situations. The best adaptations of his work carefully parse these elements to boil down the essence of the story. “It: Chapter Two” does not make the effort. Instead it laboriously recreates the novel, frills and all. It may have worked in print but here it feels the running gag about Bill’s inability to properly end his stories has come to life, manifesting itself in the CGI heavy climax and the extended coda.
In this sequel Pennywise’s red balloon has finally popped.
