Spoilers The Flash (2023) -Review and Discussion Thread

[Saul]

I had a lot of fun with it. How Keaton was used was a little different to my expectation but I can't really fault any decisions they made with it. That final credits scene with Aquaman looks to be cut though. I get the feeling another character was going to show up at that moment.

 

[The Realist]

Regretfully, I gave it a "C," and I feel like that's generous.

Movie starts off great. The "baby shower" scene is genius. Hilarious, and at the same time an appropriate and effective showcase for Barry's abilities. I loved all the humor, was surprised and delighted by Gadot's appearance (I hadn't been spoiled on that), and thought I was in for a great ride for the first hour or so. And Miller, for all their real-life issues, is undeniably a very talented and engaging actor.

But the pacing started to sag in the middle, and I started to be aware that Supergirl -- the character I personally was mainly there to see -- was going to be a later addition to the narrative than I hoped.

When she finally showed up, however, I felt like it was all worth it. Calle did everything I could have wanted with the limited screentime she had, and I thought the writing for the character was pretty solid, given that they had to basically create an arc for her out of a mere handful of scenes. She projected a strong presence and looked great in the suit. Her verbal confrontation with Zod (a welcome return by Michael Shannon) over Kal's fate was fire.

But I HATED (hated, hated, hated) the climax. So the upshot is that Kara and Keaton-Batman FAIL AND DIE, and their Earth is presumably successfully World-Engined and all of humanity wiped out by Zod. Great. That's totally the kind of triumphant ending I love in my superhero movies, Muschietti, and the fates I wanted for our splendid new Supergirl and our beloved old Batman. Preesh.

(This would have been mitigated somewhat by the original ending that was shot, in which Keaton-Bruce and Kara show up outside the courthouse after the hearing, instead of Clooney-Bruce in what was fundamentally just a gag. But as it is, we're left with the sour taste of their deaths completely intact.)

Of course, I ate up the George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Helen Slater, and Nicolas Cage cameo appearances like a starving dog. Wonderful, delightful, magical. Made me forget for a few moments that they had just introduced an excellent new Supergirl only to callously sacrifice her to Barry's rather trite "you can't fix everything" lesson.

I did shed a single manly tear at Barry's scene with his mom in the grocery store. Effectively emotional, but not enough to justify the damage previously done.

So yeah, that "C" is definitely generous.

 

[thribs]

The ending is probably the most accurate thing from the Flashpoint story they did. No matter what Barry does, they all die and Earth is doomed.
Supergirl was okay but she didn’t really do much. She was more of a plot point than a character.

 

[The Realist]

The ending is probably the most accurate thing from the Flashpoint story they did. No matter what Barry does, they all die and Earth is doomed.

I haven't read Flashpoint, and have no interest one way or the other in the "accuracy" of its adaptation. I only know what the film did with that plot point (and its characters), and I didn't like it.

 

[Rich Watson]

DOA with a $64 million opening weekend now expected.

https://deadline.com/2023/06/box-office-the-flash-elemental-ezra-miller-1235418741/

Spider-Verse $120m
GOTG3 $118m
Even bloody Quantumania managed $106m

 

[thribs]

I haven't read Flashpoint, and have no interest one way or the other in the "accuracy" of its adaptation. I only know what the film did with that plot point (and its characters), and I didn't like it.

Check out the animated film. It runs leagues over this

 

[Aragorn]

Real cameo good. CGI cameos bad.

 

[Skywalker]

"Who the fuck is this?!"

 

[thribs]

With only one DCEU film remaining, this my current ranking of all of them:

Man of Steel
Justice League
BvS
WW
Shazam
Black Adam
Shazam 2
The Flash
Aquaman
WW 1984
The Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad
Birds of Prey

I’ll need to think for all ArrowVerse movies in the multiverse.

 

[Tosk]

So if Keaton and Clooney are both present as Batmans, I guess this movie is at least implying that they weren't the same guy after all? (I say implying because obviously one could argue that there are multiple universes where Batman looks like Keaton. And/or Clooney.)

Edit FYI: I haven't seen The Flash yet, so I don't know if Keaton is actually playing the Keaton Batman or if he's just another Batman who happens to be played by Keaton.

 

[Guy Gardener]

So if Keaton and Clooney are both present as Batmans, I guess this movie is at least implying that they weren't the same guy after all? (I say implying because obviously one could argue that there are multiple universes where Batman looks like Keaton. And/or Clooney.)

Edit FYI: I haven't seen The Flash yet, so I don't know if Keaton is actually playing the Keaton Batman or if he's just another Batman who happens to be played by Keaton.

Afleck, Clooney, Keaton and

Spoiler

West

.

Imagine George Reeves' Superman snapping Zod's neck.

Actually... Afleck played George once.

Now that would have been confusing.

 

[The Realist]

Imagine George Reeves' Superman snapping Zod's neck.

Ha! I can actually see first-season George doing it.

I feel like the treatment of Supergirl in The Flash may be pissing me off more than MoS's neck-snap ever did. At least Clark wasn't bleeding out in the dirt at the end of that film while Zod went on to destroy the world.

It occurs to me that James Gunn has been praising The Flash to the skies. I hope he's just being a good corporate soldier, and doesn't really think this is an acceptable way to treat a Superfamily character in a movie. If he does, it doesn't bode well for Superman: Legacy.

 

[Tosk]

Afleck, Clooney, Keaton and

Yeah, but Affleck and the other guy were never playing the same person in the same universe. Whereas Keaton and Kilmer and Clooney were implied to be back in the day.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Yeah, but Affleck and the other guy were never playing the same person in the same universe. Whereas Keaton and Kilmer and Clooney were implied to be back in the day.

Implied imshlied.

There were a couple time travel episodes in the 1990 tv show, and Clark turns back time every time Lois dies. That's actually weird. That means that every time Clark goes back to save Lois, her face may change. So he's saving the wrong Lois?

 

[Christopher]

I haven't read Flashpoint, and have no interest one way or the other in the "accuracy" of its adaptation. I only know what the film did with that plot point (and its characters), and I didn't like it.

I've seen the animated and Arrowverse adaptations of Flashpoint, and I was really hoping this movie would not be faithful to it, since I don't think it's a good story. So hearing that it's "accurate" is a turnoff for me.

So if Keaton and Clooney are both present as Batmans, I guess this movie is at least implying that they weren't the same guy after all? (I say implying because obviously one could argue that there are multiple universes where Batman looks like Keaton. And/or Clooney.)

Edit FYI: I haven't seen The Flash yet, so I don't know if Keaton is actually playing the Keaton Batman or if he's just another Batman who happens to be played by Keaton.

I haven't seen it either (though I've decided I don't mind being spoiled on it), and the impression I get is that Barry rewrote his own Earth's timeline so that Bruce Wayne was inexplicably Michael Keaton rather than Ben Affleck (even though changing history does not work like that), rather than Barry jumping universes to Earth-89. Although I suppose the intention could be to jokingly suggest that the reason for the change from the Burton universe to the Schumacher universe was because the Flash altered history. But I doubt it would hold up if you tried to apply it seriously.

Anyway, audiences these days take multiverses way too literally, as if there were actually some kind of objective reality to these works of make-believe and they're required to fit together in a cohesive way. No. Multiverses are just a story device used within some stories, and what one story asserts about the multiverse is not necessarily binding on any others. (For instance, the supposedly canonical Smallville comic did a version of Crisis on Infinite Earths that conflicts with the Arrowverse version even though the Arrowverse version incorporated Smallville. And Marvel Comics and the MCU disagree on whether the MCU takes place on Earth-199999 or Earth-616.) There is no "fact" to this, just the presumptions that individual storytellers choose to make for the purposes of their separate stories. So the way "reality" is defined in different productions is rarely consistent. (Like back in 1966 where characters in The Green Hornet watched Batman on TV and characters on Batman watched The Green Hornet on TV, but then the Green Hornet showed up in Batman as a real person, twice, in contradictory ways.)

 

[Saul]

Yeah, but Affleck and the other guy were never playing the same person in the same universe. Whereas Keaton and Kilmer and Clooney were implied to be back in the day.

Back in the day, yes, but since Keaton was announced as returning they seemed to imply that Batman 89 and Returns are separate in the same way that Superman III and IV aren't part of the Superman Returns world.

Some are of the opinion that the Keaton Batman in this movie isn't exactly the same as the one from 89.

 

[The Realist]

It occurs to me that James Gunn has been praising The Flash to the skies. I hope he's just being a good corporate soldier, and doesn't really think this is an acceptable way to treat a Superfamily character in a movie. If he does, it doesn't bode well for Superman: Legacy.

To make it worse, the fact that Kara's and Keaton-Bruce's deaths are not undone in the film's closing moments was specifically because of Gunn and Safran, who nixed not just one but two previously-shot endings in which they returned, in favor of the current one. (One of the previous versions also featured Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot.)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...side-george-clooney-return-batman-1235517975/

Supergirl was retained [originally] because even though the [pre-Gunn/Safran] executives were killing the development of a standalone Supergirl movie, they were open to her returning in some form and didn’t want the last image audiences saw of her to be her death at the hands of a supervillain (Michael Shannon’s General Zod).

Gee, ya think?

I have to say, I've lost a lot of goodwill and optimism toward Gunn because of this.

(And yes, I'm aware I seem to be talking to myself on this subject, and quite possibly coming off like some kind of loon. Guess nobody else was bothered, or cares. Oh, well.)

 

[Christopher]

(And yes, I'm aware I seem to be talking to myself on this subject, and quite possibly coming off like some kind of loon. Guess nobody else was bothered, or cares. Oh, well.)

The film only came out yesterday in the US. A lot of people probably haven't seen it yet.

Though just going from the descriptions, it sounds like the film was the victim of a lot of executive meddling. Changing the ending of a story for reasons that aren't about the story's own needs is rarely a good thing.

 

[valkyrie013]

I liked it..was better than... Well all dc stuff this go around.
Loved that they used Danny's theme music for when Keaton was in there.. Damn good music.

Now.. Batman beyond with George Clooney?

 

[The Realist]

Though just going from the descriptions, it sounds like the film was the victim of a lot of executive meddling. Changing the ending of a story for reasons that aren't about the story's own needs is rarely a good thing.

This is part of what bothers me. Gunn likes to tout himself as a storyteller first and foremost, but it seems as though the integrity of this story and these characters didn't matter to him, because he perceived them as conflicting with his own future plans. It strikes me as a very callous and self-serving attitude to take, and very disrespectful toward this film's creators, the affected characters and actors, and the audience.