The Flash: Flashpoint

Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) is trying to get his father (Ron Livingston) freed from prison for his dad’s erroneous incarceration for the murder of Barry’s mother. After helping Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) foil a heist gone wrong, Barry discovers that he can travel through time.  He gets the idea that he could save his mother and then his father would never have been convicted in the first place, getting both his parents back.  But things do not go as planned and Barry ends up in an alternate timeline where a younger him exists having grown up with both of his parents.  But in changing the timeline, Barry has affected the entire world which now exists and there are no real superhumans to stop the coming disasters that the Justice League will face in the coming future.  To right this wrong, he tracks down the one superhero that does exist, Batman, but this Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) is not the Bruce that Barry knows and loves.  Together the two Barrys and Batman find a Kryptonian, expecting Kal El, they actually get Kara ZorEl, and must persuade her to help stop the coming onslaught.  This leads to an epic battle fought between Kryptonians and our heroes.  Can they save this new world, or will Barry need to make the ultimate sacrifice by letting go of his mother and accept her death?  Watch and find out?

This was a fun, action packed, special effects extravaganza with a lot of nods and easter eggs hidden throughout. Ezra Miller does a fine job as the older Barry Allen, but the younger Barry starts to get a bit too annoying.  That is sort of the point of the character though, so Ezra does a fine job with that character too.  I was touched by some of the emotional scenes Barry has with his mother played by Maribel Verdu and I might even have shed a tear or two throughout the movie.  I really liked Sasha Calle as a Kara Zor-El we haven’t seen before.  Normally Supergirl is played as an “all American” blond with the same moral compass as her cousin, but in this story, she did not have the luxury of living a normal life and is instead hidden away in Siberia.  This is a dark haired rougher and tougher Supergirl, and I very much enjoyed her performance and wish we got more of her, and it would be great if see more of her in the future.  The real star of this movie is, of course, Michael Keaton who reprises his role from the 1989 and 1992 movies, Batman and Batman Returns in which he starred as the title character.  To many of us, he is the quintessential Bruce Wayne / Batman and to see him back in this part is just simply amazing.

The technical aspects of the movie were adequate, some of the special effects didn’t look great to me and there was a lot of it, and it can get a bit visually overwhelming. The movie runs a bit long at almost 3 hours and it honestly didn’t need to be with far too much time spent with younger Barry and the opening bank heist scene was just overdone and added little to the story.  The dialogue was clever, witty and moving at a good pace which added to the overall character development. The plot gets a bit clunky near the end and time travel can get confusing.  Overall, I enjoyed the film, but it isn’t one of my favorites of the DC Movies.  I found it an odd choice to start The Flash stand-alone movies with such an intricate storyline that could never be fully done as it was in the comic book.