The Flash (2023)

Director: Andy Muschietti

Cast: Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Ron Livingston, Michael Keaton

Have I Seen it Before: No.

Did I Like It: Quick question before we begin: Exactly how fast would I fave to run to be able to go back in time to 2018 and stop myself from writing a review of every movie I watch? Asking for a friend. Who is also me.

There’s so much to cover in this review, and I’m a little bit dreading getting into it. I feel like not addressing everything about the film would be worse than if I missed something with almost any other film. Both a monolith of controversy and (as I write this well into opening weekend) something that looks as if it will fail to fully capture the audience’s imagination. On a personal level it has promised both a shopping list of what I’ve wanted out of superhero films for a number of years, and been a repeated source of frustration. To put it simply, the film is slippery from this critic’s perspective.

Is Ezra Miller a serial abuser shielded by the possibly impenetrable privilege of being white and a movie star at the same time? Or do they struggle with any number of mental health problems exacerbated by sensational tabloid stories orbiting around them? Or is it both? I really don’t know. Plenty of people have refused to go see the movie as they reckon with those questions. I’m not bothered by anyone coming to that conclusion. I can only hope those people aren’t too terribly bothered that I decided to go see the movie, or that I’m going through all of these mental gymnastics to get me in the theater. But then again, I may have to accept it if they are.

This film is largely an engine of crowd-pleasing. Well, maybe not crowd pleasing, but there is quite a bit about it that seems designed to engender good will from me. It’s a time-travel comedy that owes as much to Batman (1989) as it does to Back to the Future (1985). For the few minutes in which it is a Justice League film, it’s easily DC’s breeziest, most enjoyable effort in that arena. Ben Affleck has two scenes in the film, and he makes the most out of them, even if his final scenes in the cowl are among several scenes with some rushed special effects*.

Which brings us to the Keaton of it all. On some level, I’ve wanted Michael Keaton to return to the role of Batman since I was ten. There were years where I would have said I definitely wanted it when it wasn’t even a possibility. And now, with all of the Twilight Zone-style monkey’s paw qualities of this film, I got my wish. For my money, he is really great in the film, channeling a lot of the same energy he brought to the earlier films. His Bruce Wayne spent two entire films avoiding people like the plague, so hermit-Bruce feels like a natural extension a

And then, they go ahead and kill him. Not only do they go ahead and kill him, but when Barry manages to reset the timeline one more time after accepting that he can’t save Batman (or, for that matter Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Calle, who the film wildly underserves), the Bruce Wayne of that universe is… I can’t believe I’m typing this… played by George Clooney.

And I’m fine with it, actually. No, really. If you had pitched me in year’s past a movie where Keaton’s Batman dies and Clooney’s Batman lives, I would have not been in favor of that movie. It’s clear an alternate ending was filmed where Keaton (or a variation of him) was once again the Batman of the main DC film universe, but that would have flown against the film’s heart, even if it means that not just Batman and Supergirl, but the entirety of Earth-89 are sacrificed to General Zod (Michael Shannon, bored but I don’t blame him as the film gives him only moments from Man of Steel (2013) to replay).

Just as Barry has to let his mother and his control over the universe go, I’ve got to let my favorite Batman go. There’s probably a few things I need to let go of, but none of us need me to convert this review into an ad hoc therapy session. That’s the lesson the movie wants to give me, I think, if you look through all the (frequently cameo-filled) noise.

Oh, one more thing. If you think this is the best superhero movie of all time, I think that may mean you need to watch more movies. That’s okay. There’s plenty of time, and plenty of methods to watch them.

* Everyone is so irretrievably bothered by some of the special effects, as if Muschietti wasn’t also the guy who made <IT - Chapter Two (2019)>. Dodgy CGI is the guy’s aesthetic.

IT - Chapter One (2017)

Director: Andy Muschietti

Cast: Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgård, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophie Lillis

Have I Seen it Before: I can’t believe I look back on seeing this in the theater as a simpler time, but I do… It’s hard to forget how terrifying in an unhinged sort of way that the “slideshow” scene was. I wasn’t even 100% sure what had happened in that scene, and it was only about 2:00 AM that following morning before I realized I had neglected to fall asleep in favor of trying to decode on a cinematic level what happened in just that scene.

Did I Like It: It’s unfortunate that IT - Chapter Two (2019) was such a befuddling disappointment, because this film ends up getting the short shrift in that deal. Whereas the conclusion so thoroughly misses the mark in every possible way (while at the same time not winding up completely embarrassing), this film capitalizes on every potential pitfall and turns it into an opportunity to make a better film.

Skarsgård has the tallest task on spec, as Tim Curry is the only consistently good thing about the first, made-for-TV adaptation It (1990). Literally no other performer in either parts of this new adaptation has been compared to their predecessor (or later on, the adults, although I did have some thoughts on Bill Hader vs. Harry Anderson). The new Pennywise acquits himself well and becomes just as iconic as his predecessor, which was no small accomplishment. His Pennywise harnesses some of the stranger elements from the source material and makes the entity less merely a murderous clown and more the ancient evil from within cosmos that he always could have been. His is the only thing that survives two movies essentially unscathed.

But the movie’s true secret weapon lies with the kids. Casting a batch of Losers could have been a big swing and a miss, but not only does each of the kids indelibly occupy their role (although Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) gets far less development than the character deserves), but they have such a seemingly genuine chemistry amongst one another that I can almost understand Muschietti’s impulse to keep the kids in the second part, even though their stories are effectively concluded here. Now, if only they had managed to pull that off the second time around… If it helps, I think the story of the children might just be more interesting than the adults, and Chapter Two never really had a chance.

IT - Chapter Two (2019)

Director: Andy Muschietti

Cast: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa

Have I Seen it Before: New release, opening weekend. And yet… It’s all looking a bit familiar.

Did I Like It: I’m sad to report that my ultimate answer will be: Only sort of.

And I’m left wondering why that is. IT - Chapter One (2017) worked so thoroughly, I’m wondering if King’s original story inherently runs out gas if left to its natural conclusion. The original television miniseries adaptation of IT (1990) may have been one of the cheaper Canadian productions ever committed to films, but Tim Curry’s original performance as Pennywise the clown inspired a generation of coulrophobia, but if we as children all watched the two-night event to the end, we may have been freed of our anxiety when we realized the monster is nothing more than a poorly animated spider.

And so, we’re left here at the end of this film with a… poorly animated spider.

The new cast only kind of works, and their stories are just a tad too disjointed to make them believable as the driving force for this movie. The film around them never gels together as the ensemble piece it should be. Their current situations are zipped through with as much speed as possible, which continues to limit their ability to be fully-formed people. It also adds a layer of—Beverly’s (Chastain) own situation not withstanding—skepticism about marriage that one would normally find in a Woody Allen movie.

Even the children, who were largely a revelation in the film, are a distracting presence in this film, for the most part. The CGI Eddie Kaspbrak (does Jack Dylan Grazer even appear in this film?) easily ranks as one of the more unsettling creatures in the film, which only somewhat damns the creature design through the rest of the film.

There are parts of the film that work. The opening scene depicting the gruesome death of Adrian Mellon (Xavier Dolan) is exactly the nauseating form of banal evil that Derry should be known for. It’s discomforting in every measurable way, but it’s a shame that the creeping evil at the very heart of the town is never really addressed beyond this opening scene.

Each scene with Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) is a symphony of horror that leaves this reviewer clenching in all of the right places, but they are few and far between. The film should really get a failing grade for presenting itself as the killer clown movies to end all killer clown movies only occasionally features its killer clown. The projector scene in Chapter One has no peak-terror equivalent in this entry, and only makes the film approach levels of forgettability that rivals the characters jumbled childhood memories. 

Much praise has been given to Bill Hader for his performance as the adult Richie Tozier. I for one think that Isaiah Mustafa as the adult Mike Hanlon brought a vigilant intelligence to the role that was sorely missing from the script of Chapter One. They both deserve every amount of that approval, and I don’t even have a counterpoint to negate that praise. So, in an effort to get the end of this review to be on a happy, positive note (one of the more drilled-to-death jokes in the movie), I think Mustafa should play Batman now.