lukas-ingel Review of Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013 Video)

Justice League: The Easter Egg Paradox

[5/10 · 13 May 2020]

• We don't actually see or really know that Barry went back in time and saved his mother until the very end and that it's the reason why everything collapses. It's only very slightly hinted at in the beginning that it's what he is going to do. I personally had not read the synposis for the movie saying this is the plot because I wanted to be all surprised by the plot, and because Barry himself seemed surprised that his mother was alive etc., it took me way into the movie to figure why he ended up in the alternate reality and that he himself had gone back in time, saving his mother and then everything else happened. I don't know if this was fully intentional, but what a weird way to cover up an important plot detail when you could've just as easily shown Barry go back in time in the beginning and it would've made no difference storywise.

Also, are we supposed to believe that after all these years of Barry apparently having the ability to time travel and save his mom, that he as a responsible adult and superhero decides to go back in time to save her after his nemesis makes a threatening comment after having been caught? What the...? How about when he was a hormonal teenager more caught up by things? How about his nemesis actually seem threatening and give a solid reason for Barry to go back in time? I feel like zero of the whole time travel plot is even discussed. It's just used as a silly plot device and excuse to make all of these crazy alternate universe things happen.

• I refuse to believe the heroes could ever get so insanely sadistic because of the butterfly effect (flashpoint paradox). It's simply incredible the lengths that they go to for minimal reason, and basically their personalities are all different which in itself is weird when they were clearly in an age where their personality had already been developed when most of these events started to differ into an alternate universe. It's so implausible I just didn't feel it, and whatever death and villainous/heroic act between most of the alternate universe characters were so emotionally distant because 1) zero impact in the world we know, 2) most of these aren't near the characters we know, they're pretty much all new characters that are given no time to be actually explored.

• Too many characters. There comes a point where easter eggs are no longer easter eggs, and we're just adding a bunch of name-drops and character intros for the sake of absolutely nothing. I know most of the DC characters, I consider myself a pretty big fan and know many origins in different versions, but I seriously found myself being like "huh, am I supposed to know these?" several times throughout when a whole bunch of new people came on screen and had a scene where they got randomly killed off, and I've never even heard of most of them before. So, so much action with characters we haven't spent any (or much) time with and whom I barely know as a fan of the universe.

It's just crazy to me that they could cram in so many characters just for the sake of it. I even got excited about the whole Shazam squad being there until I realized they weren't gonna do anything. No actual fight scenes or more than four lines of short dialogue (including "Shazam!" twice), they just got killed off by Wonder Woman off-screen. Are you kidding, what plot is that? And God help anyone who might be fairly new to the DC universe, witnessing a bunch of magic kids getting introduced only to get randomly murdered without a fight. Ultimately it gets confusing, unneccessary and time that could have been spent better and more effective with the closer to main characters.

• The girlfriend waiting back home.

Are we just going to pretend that it's somehow good writing that Barry's girlfriend has zero personality? I mean, considering barely any of these characters get time for that, it's no surprise. But when Barry returned to her at the end, it really rubbed me the wrong way cus I swear we only saw her being the most uninteresting, passive character one scene at the start, then at the hand of another man, and at the end, Barry returns to his love object all home sweet home. Mm. Okay. I'd have let that pass, TFP, hadn't it been for all your other weak moments in the writing! Now, I'mma just be all pathetic calling out your laziness.

• Dialogue. I'm going to be real nice now and actually hand you some quotes to show just how bad, cheesy and cliche it could get.

Random villain: "Well, Flash. Once again, it looks like you're the bottom and I'm the top." EXCUSE ME *spits my holy tea* That'd be some Flash action we haven't seen. Lex: "I am smart, Captain. Very smart." Bro. First of all, weird flex. Second of all, your only mission was to locate and you don't even know where you are and in a minute, you have no idea what is coming for you and that all these scenes moved the story nowhere altogether. Flash: "We're alive Vic. And where there is life, there is hope." To be fair, this is later jokingly called a Braveheart speech but honestly, that doesn't even help. The entire monologue given around this could've been polished soo much to make it not be something cheesy we hear every action/superhero movie, and if the point was to make a joke about it...maybe make it a less serious tone when you're pulling it off? See, just one instance of what could've made it work. General Lane: "I'm afraid we don't have time for introduction, Captain Jordan." (Finally, they suddenly turned self-conscious and at this point, it's actually funny. Also, what happened to Jordan again? Oh right, his only role was to kill a random big sea monster that didn't turn up as a threat to Flash, his mission or anything big happening elseworlds (see what I did there?). And of course then, another string of cliche from our heroic Captain Jordan: "General Lane, all my life I have felt like something special was waiting for me. Something no one else on Earth could do. I think I just found it, so the last thing I am, is afraid." Way to go without your ring or character relevance, Lantern.

• Now that I'm in this pettiness, I might as well bash that here's another instance of showing just how ridiculous Superman is as not just a hero, not just as any type of character, but as a character seriously existing. Holding in a nuke explosion with his bare hand around it, his palm and the guy wearing the nuke in his belt completely unaffected? Hah. *Blows* Aquaman into a wall like he is nothing but a snowflake in the wind (while himself remaining the size of E.T.)? Cool story bro. Caught in a lab his entire life so that he looks like Jack Skellington with his unhealthily thin alien body flying around, yet remains this invincible superhuman with one thousand apple-sized bullets popping off his skin thicker than Wonder Woman's newly carved Mera tiara? Hand me some kryptonite, please.

His bare appearance continues to be one that can win about any fight, a guy so over-powered that they constantly have to come up with excuses as to have him leave and be moody by himself, not joining the fight. As much as he is a deadly popular and iconic character that people are going to hate me for saying this, the only thing entertaining by this insanely superior dude is their creativity of how they are going to leave him out as much as possible. And I mean... They did leave him out for most of the duration and even gave him no real purpose showing up at the end, so hey... Could be worse.

+ The alternate Batman origin is simply amazing. I wish it had been explored much more because it was definitely a highlight and a good plot twist making for a deeper side character arc.

+ Overall the visuals were pretty decent outside the big action scenes where more colours and interesting visual choices come to show. At the end, we get some very dynamic ones and the visuals when Flash ran through time to stop himself were simply gorgeous and made me *almost* forgive that we saw none of this at the beginning...almost.

+ Speaking of the beginning, it was a very promising emotional start to the story. It was well put together, and despite being no unusual superhero backstory, it was a great dive into Flash's core and the core of this story.

+ Wonder Woman slayed Aquaman. This was satisfactory. No, I'm not a sadist. I love both characters equally. But Aquaman, if you gonna pop some Wonder cherry, and your crazy ex try to kill the woman you've apparently just fallen in love with for some reason... You've got to expect some backlash (*cough* end of the world) if you didn't even protect Wonder or try and reason with her. Like, grow up. Stop flushing Paris down the toilet and threaten Princess Diana. You disrespected your first Queen, you really gonna do it to the next one as well? Bye mate.

Ultimately, I was quite excited to watch the movie after all the amazing reviews, and this beyond mediocre story caught me off-guard. No offence meant in this review in any serious manner anyway. If you are an ultimate DC fan more than me who know slightly more than the basic fan, you care more about excessive easter eggs, action and violent character deaths than *any* of the writing behind it (except a flash of Flash's backstory and an alternate of Batman's), and you want some decent pretty dull mood visuals with a few very good explosions of colour etc., this is for you.