June 23, 2023 – Borrowing ideas from time travel movies, multiverse movies and other superhero movies, “The Flash” finds new ways to screw up the space-time continuum in very confusing ways.

The Flash, AKA Barry Allen (played by Ezra Miller) decides to use his Speed Force powers to go back in time to prevent the murder of his mother and the wrongful imprisonment of his father, despite warnings from Batman, AKA Bruce Wayne (played by Ben Affleck) that such actions might have unintended consequences.

The Flash is successful changing the timeline, but on his way back to his own time, he is knocked out of the journey into another timeline, where he meets his younger self on the same day he got his speedster powers from chemicals and lightning (this is called the Paradox of Duplication in time travel lore). The older Barry manages to place the younger Barry in the right place to get his powers, but loses his own powers in the process. Now he is stuck in the past.

Not only that, but General Zod (played by Michael Shannon) from Krypton shows up, threatening the earth, and there is no Superman around to stop him. No Wonder Woman either, it seems. The only member of the Justice League still around, is Batman, an older version of him (played by Michael Keaton, who played the same character in “Batman” in 1989).

So, how can there be an older Batman in the past, when he should be younger? Well, Batman explains to the two Barry Allens that time is not linear, it is like a bowl of spaghetti, with strands going in all directions, so when Barry changed things in the past, he also changed things that happened before the point of his time incursion. This makes no sense, so you just have to trust Batman about this.

There is still the matter of the General Zod and the other evil Kryptonians to deal with, so Barry and Batman have to discover what happened to Superman. It turns out he is being held prisoner by the Russians. Well, not exactly, it is more complicated than that. At any rate, the Flash and Batman go looking for some super help in dealing with the evil Kryptonians.

During the big battle, Flash, not having learned his lesson about the unintended consequences of time travel, again uses time travel, and causes more unintended consequences. It turns out that there are certain points in history that cannot be changed. They are just destined to be, and one of the things that is destined to be is that every superhero must have a tragic past.

This idea that every superhero must have a tragic past is the same idea as that expressed in a contemporary superhero movie, “Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse.” It seems to me this idea of the nature of superheroes is less of an inevitability and more a lack of imagination.

This movie also reminded me of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in that we see different versions of the same character, played by the actors who have played to same characters in previous movies. We see different versions of Batman, as well as different versions of The Flash. This movie even has a version of Superman played by Nicholas Cage. Well, why not? There is also a superwoman character, Kara Zor-El (played by Sasha Calle). Some of these characters are seen in alternate timelines as The Flash travels through time.

Yeah, it is a complicated story, but it mostly makes sense within its own space. I liked it, and I hope that Ezra Miller continues to play The Flash, despite his off-screen problems. He is a fine actor. If you don't think so, just check out his performance in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” sometime. This movie rates a B.

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