Film Review

The Flash (2023)

Barry Allen uses his super speed to change the past, but his attempt to save his family creates a world without superheroes…

After running in circles for years, The Flash arrives as one of the last drips to be squeezed from the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) masterminded by Zack Snyder (Batman v Superman) to mixed success. The highs of Wonder Woman (2020) and Shazam! (2019) were always weighed down by the lows of duds like Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) and Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), but The Flash is at least good enough — or perhaps simply marketable enough — to avoid getting nixed like Batgirl ahead of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU reboot. But is that because a low bar is easy to vault over?

Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) accidentally zips back in time whilst emotional over memories of his mother’s unsolved murder, which his father’s been wrongly imprisoned for, finding himself able to change his family’s unfortunate past. A humble can of tomatoes is the catalyst for Barry successfully changing history, resulting in a new timeline where his mother Nora (Maribel Verdú) is alive and his dad Henry…