I don’t know what movie or TV show was the first to show time travel, but I do know the most popular movie. If you ask most people to name a time travel movie or TV show, most of them will probably say “Back to the Future”. That movie is even referenced a couple times in this one. After the “Back to the Future” trilogy, time travel practically became a genre for movies and TV shows.
There are basically two theories that most time travel stories use. The first theory is if something is changed in the past, the future adapts to the change. For example, in the movie “Frequency”, when a man gets injured in the past the man in the future gets a scar where the injury happened.
The second theory is that if something is changed in the past then it makes an alternate future. One of the biggest examples of this is the “Star Trek” movie from 2009 which rebooted the entire “Star Trek” story. Someone goes into the past and ends up killing the father of Captain Kirk, which completely changes the “Star Trek” story from the original TV show.
I believe the animated “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” was the first movie to take the second time travel theory and expand it into a “multiverse” where people can go from one alternate future to another. In that movie, Miles Morales is the boy that becomes Spider-Man instead of Peter Parker – the person who becomes Spider-Man in all the previous movies and television shows. Peter Parker travels to the universe with Miles Morales and ends up training him on how to be Spider-Man.
Marvel continued exploring the idea of the multiverse in other movies and TV shows including “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, “Loki”, “WandaVision”, and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”. They made so many movies and TV shows about the multiverse, by the time DC got around to doing it in this movie, they storyline has gotten fairly old.
This movie starts with Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller) helping his Justice League partner Batman (Ben Affleck) with some trouble in Gotham City. When he’s not The Flash, he works on trying to help his father Henry Allen (Ron Livingston) who was wrongfully arrested and convicted for murdering Nora Allen (Maribel Verdú), Barry’s mother and Henrys wife. That night, Barry gets a videotape enhanced by Wayne Enterprises that might finally prove his father’s alibi and get him released from jail. However, the tape doesn’t prove anything. When he talks to his father that night, Henry has given up hope. He believes that he will never be released from jail. This upsets Barry so much that he gets into The Flash costume and ends up running so fast he discovers he can run back in time. He gets the idea that he can go back and change the past so his mother doesn’t get killed and his father gets out of jail. Although his friend Bruce Wayne/Batman warns him that going back in time could accidentally change the entire universe, Barry is determined to go back in time so he can get his mother and father back.
After he altered the past, a creature emerges and interrupts his return to the present time. The creature throws him into the time right before Barry got his powers that made him “The Flash”. At first, Barry enjoys having dinner at home with his father and his mother, but problems quickly start to develop.
The first problem is that the younger Barry doesn’t have the powers he gets that makes him the Flash and he won’t get them since the younger Barry doesn’t work at the lab where the lightning hit him and made him the Flash. The second problem is that General Zod (Michael Shannon) is attacking the planet. Superman fought Zod in Barry Allen’s reality (in the movie “Man of Steel”), but he doesn’t show up this time. So, Barry must find any superheroes that exist in this reality. The third problem is that Cyborg, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman from the Justice League don’t exist in this reality. There is a Batman but it’s not the same person that Barry knows. It’s an older Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) who used to Batman but isn’t needed much anymore since “Gotham City is one of the safest places in the world”. There is also a Super…person but it’s not the Superman that Barry knows. It’s Kara Zor-El (Sasha Calle), a cousin of Superman who is also from Krypton. The older and younger Barry Allen, the older Batman, and Kara Zor-El are the only hope to save Earth.
The one good thing about this movie is the storyline at the start of the movie. I didn’t know much about the backstory of Barry Allen/The Flash, so I was very interested in the scenes where the movie explains it. However, that plotline quickly gets pushed aside for the multiverse storyline. A major chunk of the middle of the movie is about the older and younger Barry Allen finding Bruce Wayne/Batman, and then about the three of them finding Kara Zor-El (I only remember her being called “Supergirl” once or twice in the movie).
The multiverse alternate reality storyline is the weakest part of the movie. Parts of it just copy the plot of some of the Marvel movies or TV shows. Michael Keaton returns as Batman just like how the actors who played Spider-Man in the past returned in “Spider-Man No Way Home”. Someone plays a different version of Superman just like how other actors (and a few creatures) play different versions of Loki in the “Loki” TV series and different versions of Spider-Man in the recent “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” movie. There are also a few “surprise cameos” (if you don’t mind spoilers and you want to know the surprises – check the internet) of additional alternate reality characters that feel like the filmmakers added them to pander to the comic book fans that love the other characters.
Another problem I have with this movie is the acting. There are some scenes that are supposed to be very dramatic and emotional – specifically when Barry Allen (young or old) talks about losing his mother. Despite all the praise from the movie’s director (and others) that call the movie very emotional, it wasn’t emotional for me because of the acting. Sasha Calle – in her first major role (her pervious credits are a soap opera and some short films) – also couldn’t handle her characters emotional scenes. A few times when she was trying to be dramatic, I was just focused on her hair which – like Christopher Reeves hair when he played Superman – never seems to move at all.
The biggest problem I have with this movie is all the gratuitous CGI shots. There are countless unneeded action scenes in this movie often accompanied by a random rock song – including the entire opening montage where The Flash saves some babies falling out of a crumbling hospital, the final battle scene with General Zod, and especially the area that is shown when The Flash travels through time. According to the internet, director Andy Muschietti calls that area“the Chrono Bowl”. To me, it’s CGI going crazy. After watching scenes like that for 2 hours (of the 2-hour 24-minute movie) I think it would have been better to shorten the action scenes.
Overall, I hope that this movie is an example of the OLD DC universe and not the not NEW DC universe that James Gunn and Peter Safran (the new co-heads of DC at Warner Bros) say is going to start with the movies coming in 2024. However, according to internet reports, Warner Bros is developing a new “Supergirl” movie that will star Sasha Calle. I’m guessing that if they make that movie, it might have a cameo from Helen Slater, the woman who played Supergirl in the 1984 movie.
I give it 4 out of 10 stars.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 