The Reel Rejects - Just Watched THE FLASH! Reaction & Movie Review!

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

RIGHT OUT OF THE THEATER! Snag Yourself A *BATVERSE* Shirt! https://shopzeroedition.com/products/batverse-t-shirt The Flash (2023) Movie Review for the DCEU film starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton Batman, Ben Affleck Batman, Supergirl Sasha Calle, the return of General Zod from Man Of Steel (Michael Shannon), & plenty of easter eggs/cameos but because this is NO SPOILERS we will not be ruining that for you today. The DCEU film is rolled over into the James Gunn DCU which will reboot Superman and feature Blue Beetle - a real Flashpoint if you will that will begin our journey to a new Justice League. Coy Jandreau & Greg are here to tell if you if this movie lives up to the hype (in their opinion lol)! #TheFlash #TheFlashMovie #DCU #DCEU #EzraMiller #Batman #MichaelKeaton #BenAffleck #Superman #Supergirl #GeneralZod #ManOfSteel #zacksnyder #snydercut #zacksnydersjusticeleague #restorethesnyderverse - Follow Coy Jandreau On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CoyJandreau - Become A Super Sexy Reject For Full-Length T.V. & Movie Reactions! https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects - Support The Channel By Checking Out Our Bomb A** Merch: http://shopzeroedition.com/collections/reel-rejects-merch - POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We have so much style under one roof because a friend knows you like options. Drop by or visit us at shanko.com. Shane Company, your friend and jeweler. I feel like I'm Tom Cruise's love interest standing next to you on camera. You know what? I can't help my heightened genetics, Gregory. What is going on? There's Citizens of the Reject Nation. Greg and Coy here today. We just got out of watching The Flash movie.

I want to give a special thank you right off the bat to Christian Harloff because Koi and I individually, we struggle to get into early screenings. We have sent so many emails left and right, text messages, phone calls, and the only one who was able to help us out was Christian Harloff. We were able to get our names on a list. Unfortunately, neither Koi nor myself could bring a plus one. That's why there's no John today. You got us right now. And so if you guys can go ahead and leave a like at any minute now, we might get kicked out of here. I'm pretty confident that we saw someone make a phone call. Your viewers on the edge. We're going to have to make this really fast.

like the Flash and speaking like the Flash quick promo for our new shirt right here. That verse of all the Batman here, shop zero edition.com. It's one of my new faves. One of the great ways to support the channel and one of the great ways to make yourself look good to yourself. Anywho, guys, there's a lot that happened in this film. So real quick recap of what happens in this movie based off of the trailers to make sure we're not spoiling anything for you guys.

Barry Allen, aka the Flash, decides to take a trip back in time to save his dear mother from her untimely demise. But little as you know, his heroic act lands him in an alternate reality where there are no meta-humans to be found. But fear not, dear friends, for Barry teams up with his younger self, the season Batman played by Michael Keaton and the Superpowered Supergirl to save the day. Together, they must stop the notorious Man of Steel events for wreaking havoc on this world and find a way to get Barry back to his own universe. So much is happening, will they succeed? And was this movie good?

I think we should work this review a little backwards today. Sometimes I'd like to talk about the story first and all that. Themes, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Let's talk about what we really want to talk about. What did you think of Michael Keaton in this film? I mean everybody was waiting for. He's on the shirt. You know what?

I'm going to own something. Michael Keaton's not the Batman I grew up with because my parents are really young and I was young so it's not like our household movie like a lot of families. I like the Timbert Michael Keaton movies, but I don't love them with the same reverence. And this movie made me like the more.

I actually like really got a lot of moments out of the Michael Keaton Batman that I didn't expect to like land as well. Really enjoyed it. You could tell Michael Keaton's having a lot of fun with this role. He is just relaxed, fun Michael Keaton in this movie. And there's some Batman action

that you see teased in the trailer where you're like, Wow, he's doing way more shit than you saw him do in any of those Tim Burden movies. And there are some pretty cool fight scenes that he gets here. It was a blast to see Michael Keating. While we're on the subject of Keaton, I got to say there's also a lot of DC love letters in here. So if you're a diehard DC fan, there's a lot in here that I'm not going to say because this is a non-spoiler. But know that there is a lot of like, oh my God, I can't believe excitement beyond Keaton.

Yeah. The Keaton is the one that's in the trailers, but there's so many like, oh my God. That said, I love Supergirl. And I have been very vocal about my excitement for Supergirl. Girl Woman of Tomorrow, the Tom King movie that is being written by the guy that wrote the comic. And I honestly could see her in that comic now. And that was a really cool moment for me. As a fan of that run that knows it's getting adapted, I really think she could crush it.

She has such a strong presence in this movie. She is badass. She is hot. She is hot. She is hot. Ferocious being in this film. And it did make me go, I hope moving forward in the DC universe that she gets to remain as Supergirl because she is a powerful presence on the screen.

captivating so immediately there's not a lot of like need to go okay she's supergirl okay no no she's supergirl you immediately are endeared to her you're immediately impressed by her just passion and it's so apparent in every frame i'm really that fingers crossed now we got to talk about the person of the hour ezra miller i feel like it's a obligatory thing to say for every review i haven't heard any reviews yet i'm sure everyone is saying something along the lines of we know of ezra miller's past credences and the things Ezra Miller has been in the spotlight for, and we kind of just got to push that shit to the side for a little bit. By reviewing the film, neither of us condone the actions of one Ezra Miller. This movie did something that I thought was surprisingly clever. As you see in the

trailer, Barry Allen, time travels to the past, changes some stuff. So then there's this younger Barry Allen who has not yet become the Flash and they've had different life experiences. That younger Barry Allen, I feel like, is sort of a play on the criticisms that people have held against part of the annoying, humorous parts. Even though I actually really enjoyed Ezra Miller's work, even in the Justice League version I enjoyed Ezra Miller's work, there are these criticisms that have been held about Ezra Miller's character being kind of annoying at times

based off the kind of humor and dialogue that they're given. Pair them up with our Barry Allen, who is a much more seasoned flash and has all these experiences a little bit more serious this time around. So you get the juxtaposition. The duplicitousness, the duality as Koi loves to say. There's some criticisms that I have about some of the CGI in terms of using them and some deep fake technology or whatever it is they're doing, some face swapping technology. But Ezra Miller absolutely kills it in both of these roles. Fully lived in, makes the scenes believable due to their work.

The parts I actually loved the most were with them and everything surrounding the heart of this movie, which was everything around Barry Allen's personal journey. I wanted to start off with the performances first because so much of this movie I feel is elevated by the performances. What did you think of Ezra Miller? I completely agree with everything you said. I do think this movie does some of that Marvel Magic, where as you grow into a universe, you can retroactively make things work. And I think Ezra Miller, like you were saying, having that younger hymn that some people critique the performance of with our Barry Allen, it shows the juxtaposition, the duality of

maturity. But it also shows what it would be like to be around yourself. And I love the hero's journey of the self-fulfilling prophecy of having to mature. And usually you don't get that in your face. And I love that the storytelling allows him to realize. the flaws in his thinking in a way that is visual, and that is so unique to a time travel story in Flashpoint. I think the emotionality of Ezra Miller is second to none in this use. I remember a lot of people saying no one else could play this part. I remember a lot

of people saying they were in every frame. They are, and they were right about that, because there are so many amazing performances times two for two hours. It's just a powerhouse take. Like, if you've seen Tom Hardy and Legend or any number of twin movies, this is that, but in a superhero scale. And at no point did I stop and go, oh, right, there's just one of them. I kept thinking that they were them. It was fun with the newer Barry Allen because, at first, he is just annoying. And when I say he, I understand, Ezra Miller goes by the thing. I'm going by, I'm using he in terms of talking about Barry Allen.

Barry Allen, the younger version, the whole point is to make him annoying right away. And he was to the point where I was like, I don't know if I'll enjoy this because he's too annoying. And then he becomes very likable. Ezra Miller managed to do that thing where I was like, I forgot about all the things he did for a little while because I was so transported by your performance in this movie. Oh, right. Yeah, Michael Shannon was kind of whatever in this.

Which is like, how do you waste Michael Shannon again? He was just kind of whatever, honestly. And Ben Affleck, I don't know what it was. I thought it was weird. It seemed strange. When you first see his action scene, that's teased in the trailer, it's cool, but then there's parts of it where I thought,

there's no weight to the physicality of the way he's being used right now, and it feels a little on the freeway that you see. You know what I mean when he's being tossed around? I was like, this feels too cartoony. That was one of the main thoughts I had. This feels like a live action DC animated movie, which to its credit is a very big compliment,

and at times makes some other things feel a little bit strange. Especially when you're used to those things being weighted. Yeah. That was every time something was off, it was because you're used to it from another thing. So, like, this has the magic of Shazam's joy and the gravitas of Zach Snyder's imagery and the nostalgia of, like, a Justice League, oh, my God, they're gathering. But any time you're going from the Saturday morning cartoon, but more adults, like the DC cartoon,

and then you throw in a Frank Miller-Spen Affleck, you're like, what is happening? Yeah, it's like this movie clearly acknowledges the events of Zach Snyder's Justice League, but I kind of feel like Ben Afflex was plucked out of the Justice League one. Interesting, because the way, the flavor of it. Well, the kind of the, when it's just him in the suit talking and it's like, and bright and CGIed out. I'm like, something looks really weird about this. Yeah. And I loved him when he was Bruce. Like, I loved he had a good Bruce. He had a good Bruce scene. He had a good Bruce scene. Yeah. I talked about in our, in our trailer reaction that it felt like a

splash page and a smash of different artists all drawing on the same page and how exciting that was. I think it works in some doses, but sometimes it doesn't. And I think those are the moments we're talking about. For the movie itself, I think that the movie is a lot of fun. There's some great action in here. I didn't love it as much as I had hope to love it. Maybe it was a little over-hyped. I don't really know if that factors in for my experience here. There's parts of this movie that I feel are a little bit clunky. For a movie called The Flash, I get that it's a fast-paced film. At the same time, I did feel like this movie could kind of slow down a little bit. This movie needs a little bit of breathing room because it kind of just keeps

hopping from plop-point, plop-pli, pop-pli, pop-pli, like moving at such a rapid-fire pace. I kind of got the thought in my head that goes, and then this happens, and then this happens, A lot of the time I did feel like while this movie maintained a genuine sense of fun and reverency for films of the past, not just in terms of the DCEU, but the films that came prior, you could tell there's a lot of love from behind the camera. Even with the screenplay, you can tell there's so much love. At the same time, I do find that there are some strange issues with this movie, particularly in the first act, a little bit in the third act. Even though the third act delivers some of the best emotional moments this film has to offer

and has some of the best tension in stakes this film has to offer, I did feel that this film, as big of a stakes as it is, weirdly felt like the emotionality of the stakes was not really felt through a lot of it, and there was a lack of tension. In the finale, I heard a lot of people have said that it becomes like this big CGI fest. There's a lot of CGI.

But personally, I wasn't distracted by, oh, my God, it's just becoming another CGI battle monstrosity because it's so consequential what ends up happening there that it actually made up for a lot of the experience that I was having where I was like, I wish there was a little bit more stakes in this movie that were actually felt because there are so many converging plot lines in here. I didn't really have time to have something to worry about,

which I kind of felt like was a little bit needed for me. You know what I mean? You're dealing with one plot with Barry Allen's. And then, now we got Batman. Okay. Now we got Supergirl. Okay. Oh, yeah, the General Zod thing. That's right. There are villains. Like they're being villains.

But it made up for it by being a genuine fun ride throughout with proper fan service. I thought they executed from beginning to end. There's other things that you want to talk about, but Corey, what's your, like, take on this movie? Overall thoughts of the movie is it's, I think, the strongest second act of a DC movie ever. I have not smiled that hard. I have not laughed that much. I have not felt that much joy. And similarly, what you were saying about the first act, it wasn't even necessarily purely pacing for me.

It was that I had to adjust to a sensibility. The beginning of the film, because of the choices, they have to pay off later with the type of clawing, annoying, cloying, Barry. That's hard to adjust to that sense of humor, and I kind of worried it would be like a slapstick, humor that would carry on. And that took me a bit to adjust to. And then I realized the purpose and it all worked out. But I definitely am excited to see it a second time because I found myself being like, oh, I've heard this is the second coming of Christ and it's not so far. And then I found myself really distracted by overthinking my experience. That's not fun in a movie. I do think it is if not the best DC-EU film. It's in the conversation for top three. But I definitely found myself

being aware of thinking of that, which is a good sign. In the third act, I was really invested emotionally. I was really invested in the humor. I was really invested in the action. But then there were a few moments that the CGI made me go like, oh, I'm watching a movie. And that's never a good feeling. So all of the pieces were there, all of the love was there. As he was saying, the fan service is the most deserved. I think DC has done for all sorts of fans, whether you're a comic fan, a TV fan, a movie fan. There's so many types of fandom in DC. It delivers that. But that makes the little details that it pulls you away from a little extra spicy. Like if the CGI's off. You're so in that when it pulls you out, you're like, oh, I was, it's like there's a bigger

whiplash because of how in you were. I think one of the tricky things going into this movie that I want other people to experience that I wish I could have. I was expecting either a five or a one, and that's not fair to any movie. I wish had gone in going, man, I'm excited to see this movie because when I was able to be in that zone, I was in the zone. I honestly want to lean into how fun the movie is, and I know that a lot of people use that as a toss away. Yeah, and it's kind of exhausting because these movies are made to be fun. I didn't think about the world for two hours. That is a gift. But it does it in a way. that is not just rewarding for a casual movie goer,

it's rewarding for the deep cut. And when I say fun, I mean, I cheered and laughed and clapped and guffawed. And the full blockbuster experience that you want from like a Jurassic Park or an Independence Day or like the true summer blockbusters, I kept hearing how good this was, but I wasn't sure about the summer blockbuster feeling landing

because of how many DC movies we've had. I didn't know if it would just feel familiar and trite. It doesn't. It feels original. It feels bombastic. It feels big and fun, which is a positive. Yeah, because the movie is clearly not just committee made, you know what I mean?

Yeah. It really feels like they still had a vision for this film. You could still feel the love, again, behind what Andy Muscietti was crafting. He does seem to seamlessly weave in and out of different aesthetics throughout this entire film. That was very impressive and especially nailing down the emotional beats with Barry Allen and the story that he has with his mom in this film. That part, it almost brought me to tears. I did not personally cry at some stuff, but I came a little close. Maybe because it was very predictable from the trailer of how a lot of this was going to.

It's a flashpoint. If you know flashpoint, if you know some flash stories, it's pretty predicted. There's like a big twist that's supposed to happen in this movie that's like the second they introduced what the twist I mean. I'm like, well, it's pretty obvious what this twist is going to be like. But if you don't know. But if you don't know, you might be really surprised. But that's what I mean by what this movie I thought did contextually so well, was that even though the twist was obvious, the emotion behind it, everything that grounded that twist was rooted in how does this affect Barry Allen as a. person and the consequences that Barry Allen has to deal with, the weight of choice. While this

movie predictable, sure, it still managed to ring a lot of great drama out of these scenes that I was not expecting to be so wrapped up in and to have a great catharsis with. On top of that there are some stuff that the director himself has spoiled, but there is some big surprises in this movie that the more you can avoid of online things that have been leaking, there's a lot of things you can spoil. Do not watch TV spots because I'm worried you will have a very color by numbers experience because this movie has surprises that feel like they're delivering surprises. You're going to want those. There is an action set piece that is so spectacular that even though there were things that were very clearly computer generated, the pacing, the directing,

the style, and the commitment is all so incredible. It's probably in my top five action set pieces in the DC universe. So even when the CGI is at, it's like, whoa, there's still so much going on in a lot of these scenes that I was like, oh, I'm still wrapped up in the comic book spectacle of those scenes. I do think there's a lot of amazing action scenes in this movie. well. I've watched a lot of the Flash television series. So to me, this was like, oh, this is like the cinematic version of a lot of the sequences they try bringing a life there. Like a lot of the use of him going into the speed forces. Excellent. Dude, that opening run? The opening run was great. Opening run was great distance between Flash's City and where Gotham City is. There's a lot of just amazing sequences there with some great humor implemented throughout. But yeah, I think they do some beautiful sequences all around with all the characters we listed. Supergirl, Flash, Batman. I couldn't help but compare some of the crotonian fights, the Man of Steel, which I feel like is still top tier level for me, because I was like, ah, you know, Zach Snyder really did that shit a little bit better with the crotonian action, but it was still cool to see here.

There is some weird CGI stuff that happens in this movie, and I found it most distracting, and it's really saved by Ezra Miller's performance, because Ezra Miller is great throughout. When you have both of them on screen, you can really tell when they're like face planting or deep faking, I don't know what technology it is. You can tell which one is the actual one they're filming within this take and who the other one You know, it's funny? I only noticed that twice. I noticed it so in. So much.

It was so distracted. I was very much distracted by it. And they have some great use of the speed force in here. And there was this cartoony effect that I was like, is this supposed to look cartoony? Because they have a lot of these surprises and shit, but a lot of it looks very cartoony. That I struggled with.

There is an entire sequence that is weighted in both spectacle and emotionality. I was able to experience the spectacle with a little asterisk because I was like, oh, I'm supposed to feel spectacle. Could not experience emotionality because I was like, is that a cake? I could not experience the spectacle of it because I was distracted by this looks like a computer. Overall, Koi, would you rate it? I'm going to go and I'm going to get some spice. 8.4.4.4. Maybe 8.5, but I got to think about it.

8.4.8. I'm like an 8. I'm like an 8. The more to look back at it, the more I'm like, yeah, I had a lot of fun with that. So I'd probably say like an 8.3. I think I'm going to land on the 8.5 now that he's given your number only because I remembered at one point in the second act thinking that my face hurts so bad that I needed to stop and I couldn't. And I love that feeling. 8.5. It's a really, really fun movie. There's no way to get around that.

It's a super, super fun movie. Anyway, guys, fortunately, we do not get kicked out. I have been seeing theater attendees behind us, constantly looking at us and it keeps getting me worried. So we got a hex out of here. Guys, thank you so much for being here. Subscribe, leave a like, keep a lookout for a spoiler talk. We'll catch you guys soon.