Film review | Ezra Miller’s The Flash isn’t quite the resurrection DC wished for but is a foundation to build on

Ezra Miller in 'The Flash'.

In a scene from DC’s The Flash, the protagonist is trying to help people in an under-attack Gotham. A hospital building collapses in slow motion as Ezra Miller’s cocky version of the eponymous superhero saves at least half a dozen babies, by moving through the falling rubble. It’s a Marvel-like moment if you like, where the goofiness of the sequence attempts to create a springboard for the film’s quirks that are likely to follow. This is one of DC’s lightest, most fun films in recent memory and yet it’s also somewhat hamstrung by the indecisiveness what, if anything, does it want to be in the end. Part teen comedy, part superhero film and part fan-service to DC’s better bets, this film shows signs of life, at times even innovation, but is eventually crushed under the weight of expectations it comes tied with.

For a film that was announced as early as 2014, and has been through creative bumps, near collapses and a toxic star presence, The Flash is probably not as bad as you’d expect a film with such a toxic origin story to be. We meet Barry Allen (Miller) as he works in the forensic department at the Central city police station. Allen is tardy, a bit of a loner but possibly also a quasi-genius. He obviously has a tortured past in the context of is parents. His father is serving time, and may find himself on death row for committing the murder of his wife. The complicated shadow of that crime is never quite situated in the space of a torturous moral conundrum — the direction you hope a brave superhero film, at least a DC film, will eventually take. Rather than evaluate the father figure’s culpability the film goes all out to rescue him as Flash, for the fourth or fifth time in recent memory takes us into the multiverse.

By travelling back in time, Allen takes us to a timeline where none of the other superheroes bar one, exists. This one sole proprietor of heroism is of course the scene-stealing act of Michael Keaton returning as an unkempt, and directionless Bruce Wayne, who has given up the cape after crime in Gotham has been erased. Again, the implication of a Batman becoming existential in the absence of crime is never queried beyond the surface. In the process of travelling to a time where he can save his mother, Allen teams up with a younger, more annoying version of himself, the then Batman and — not a spoiler — Supergirl to take on Zod, Superman’s nemesis from Man of Steel. There are plenty of holes to be picked into DC’s supposition of time travel here. To pull of the thuggery of such make-believe ideas you need to summon charm; the kind that Miller unfortunately, can’t provide; at least not in twos. Thankfully that charm is somewhat supplied by Keaton’s magnanimous resurgence as the Batman who probably didn’t get the love it deserved.

What works for this particular film in parts, is the comedic flourishes of a teen movie. Far from Spiderman’s sobriety this is an edgier world of slurs, sex and drugs among teenagers. It’s a welcome detour from Marvel’s clean-state methodology. The madness, the sheer exuberance of this youthful superhero feels fresh until DC’s own unilateral failings as a studio comes back to haunt the story. The tone shifts between goofiness and grief, and Miller is clearly unequipped to carry both. He is a jagged presence, poking out of the heart of a loose, tepid film crying out for a warm, beloved character to anchor the chaos, maybe even dwarf it with sheer charm and sociological resilience. Miller, to the contrary is a jarring presence.

The tonal mismatch and time-travelling confusions aside, The Flash, a film designed to rejig the DC universe, tease its newest frontiers, fails at building the heroic figure responsible for it all. The otherworld charms of a man capable of travelling faster than light is quite simply never applied in the same manner that curiosity and subversion could have. The teen comedy bits hint at something before receding into DC’s bloated model of constructing for the future with tools of the tired past. It’s Keaton’s Batman who steals the show, with an air of comfort and wit about him.

Pulled into a somewhat comic plotline, his return feels like the trained, worldly-wise hand of experience that the rest of this film seems to be crying out for. The other superhero tributes work to an extent, but the gratingly poor CGI is never far behind. The climax though inspired on a storytelling level, is visually redundant and ultimately, forgettable. Even the 15-second post-credits scene, the one thing you expect a film trying to recalibrate the clock would manage to pull off, is passé. And for all its blitz of humour and fan-service The Flash isn’t quite a resurrection, but a messy, defeated press of the restart button. In the end it can’t seem to run away from the clutches of mediocrity.