There’s a skittish energy and humour to this latest picture from the DC universe. Foregrounding the Flash (Ezra Miller), the juvenile, socially maladroit dogsbody of the Justice League, proves to be exactly the injection of irreverence that the series needed. And while some of the special effects may not be as polished as you might expect from a big-budget film, but it’s a perfectly serviceable and frequently amusing addition to the ever-increasing list of superhero pictures that unfold in multiverses or parallel realities, albeit one that covers similar territory to the recent, superior Spiderverse outing.
In this picture, Barry Allen realises he can run so fast that he can travel back in time (the science on this is unconvincing). Still grieving his mother’s death when he was a child, he decides to nip back to the past and save her, but in doing so inadvertently creates another timeline with an alternative Barry Allen, an adolescent buffoon with impulse control issues. And that’s not all – he discovers a replacement Batman, and in place of Superman, there is Supergirl (Sasha Calle, somewhat underused). It’s efficient, pacy and largely enjoyable stuff.
