Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox

If you follow this blog, you know that I love comic book movies but I have never really read any actual comic books.

And believe me, a part of me would like to. I listen to a lot of movie podcasts that also talk about comic books, I basically read about comic books and I want to get their storylines. Everything about comic books I really like, I just don't like reading them. And now I've found another way to get the stories from comic books without actually reading them, and that is from the animated movies.

Animated movies have the ability to bring out the story of comic books, almost better than live action movies do. On top of that, they have the ability to stay true to the comic more than live action movies. And that brings me to The Flashpoint Paradox.

Having watched the first season of The Flash, I am becoming more and more familiar with the character and its making me want to know more. Flashpoint was always a storyline that I had heard of, but I never knew what the storyline was about. And then I figured out that it was about time travel and changing time lines and I realized that that is exactly the kind of storylines I love.

On top of that, if you read my last post on the DC cinematic universe and how I want them to fix the mess made by Batman v Superman, I rely heavily on The Flashpoint storyline. I felt I needed to be well versed in the storyline before I could reliably cite that as material they should use for the upcoming Flash movie, starring Ezra Miller in 2018.

But like I said, I don't read the comic books. Luckily, Netflix has the animated version of the storyline and its a pretty quick entertaining watch.

The Flashpoint Paradox starts with Barry Allen (voiced by Justin Chambers) waking up in a world very different than the world where he is the Flash fighting crime with the Justice League. In this world, Barry doesn't have his powers. His mother is still alive instead of being murdered by the Reverse Flash (voiced by C. Thomas Howell). One of nemeses, Captain Cold, is not Citizen Cold and is a hero instead of a villain.

Instead of a hero, Aquaman (voiced by Cary Elwes) is a ruthless tyrant and has taken over part of the world. Wonder Woman (voiced by Vanessa Marshall) is very much the same and has taken over Europe. The two of them had a truce at one point but are now at war with one another and are threatening to plunge the world into chaos with their war.

On top of that, Superman is no where to be seen.

Barry is obviously confused and lost without his powers. He knows someone messed with the Speed Force and changed the past, but he can't change anything without his powers. He figures the best person to help him with this challenge is the Dark Knight.

But even more has changed as when Barry finds Batman, he is not the Batman we are all familiar with. (He's barely in this movie, but Bruce Wayne is voiced by Kevin Conroy, the guy who voiced him in the animated series and the Arkham Games... not really important, I just really like that voice actor)

Batman is not Bruce Wayne, but instead is Thomas Wayne (voiced by Kevin McKidd). In this timeline, Bruce was killed instead of his parents. This causes Thomas Wayne to become a ruthless, gun toting Batman and Martha Wayne to go crazy and become The Joker (that's not totally relevant to this movie though). Throughout the movie, Thomas Wayne is trying to be recruited by Cyborg (voiced by Michael B Jordan) to join a group of government led heroes to prevent this global catastrophe being caused by the war between Atlantians and the Amazonians. Barry must find a way to get his powers back and find a way back home before this world is destroyed by the alternate hell he's stumbled upon.

Okay, so if an alternate dimensions where Bruce dies instead of his parents isn't enough, everything on the table is just interesting and a really fun what if scenario. I would almost say its so fun almost to a fault as there are so many stories going on that they can't really delve into each one with a lot of depth because they have to keep within a certain time window and keep it focused on Barry and his journey home. In fact, the video that I posted on my last rant about the solo Superman movie was all about the comic book Flashpoint and that is chalk full of times where the guy says, that's a story for another day. This wasn't just one comic book, The Flashpoint Paradox was a full comic book series. I would love to see an entire Netflix Series on all the storylines from the Flashpoint series because of all the interesting ways this world is different than the one we are familiar with.

But the thing I like probably the most about this film is that it strikes a really good balance between Justice League action poses and good dialogue.

It is definitely an animated film and a PG-13 one at that so the point is to entertain younger audiences with the action. But I feel like they crafted enough of a story that really made me interested in the plight of these characters and really made me interested in the story. Its not fantastic, but its better than I think a lot of people would expect going into an animated movie like this.

The other thing that was really good about this film was the voice acting cast. There are a lot of pretty good actors (on top of the great voice acting talent) in this film and the weird thing is, I wouldn't have known that they were in this film if I hadn't looked at the voice cast list. Cary Elwes is in this film. I had no idea and even after I knew, I still couldn't really place his voice.

The only other complaint I had with this movie was that the villain is really kind of tacked in there and he's not really that interesting. At the end of the day, you probably could have had the bad guys just be the governments working against all the heroes and the Amazonians and Atlantians, you didn't really need Reverse Flash in this movie (spoilers?)

But the truth is, this movie isn't really about The Flash. The movie reminded me a little bit of Injustice Gods Among Us. In that game's story, there was no main character because you had The Justice League. Because of the game mechanics and the opportunity to play as multiple heroes, you switched off between which character was the focus.

In this movie, Barry Allen is the main character but really because he's the only one that can travel through time with the least resistance. I was more interested in the storyline surrounding Thomas Wayne than I was Barry's storyline. Barry was more of a vehicle for the film to go into an alternate universe and just have fun.

So overall, I really liked Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. It was a simple film that got me acquainted with the comic book storyline and it gave me a lot of great ideas about how this storyline could be interjected within the DC storyline.

I think Ezra Miller is a little bit in a tough situation because of the success of the Flash television show. I think so many people were disappointed that Grant Gustin was not chosen as The Flash in the cinematic universe, that they kind of forget the awesome opportunities that can come with giving us a different Flash.

Hopefully with the release of Justice League in 2017, we can get a good representation of The Flash and people will realize how many opportunities DC has with this character. And I will reiterate how much of an opportunity the Flashpoint story is for Ezra Miller's Flash.

In my previous post, I talked about how Flashpoint is more of an opportunity for DC to get their franchise on track and fix some of the mistakes from Batman v Superman. But it is also an opportunity to really delve into the character of Barry Allen and do a little bit more for the character than the animated movie did.

Like I said before, Barry Allen was more of a vehicle for a larger fight we saw in the animated movie. But a live action adaptation of Flashpoint can allow for Barry Allen to have his backstory shown, but in a way that isn't an origin story, and furthers the character more. The main reason this alternate timeline happens (spoilers) is because Barry goes back to save his mother from being murdered. His mothers murder is a quintessential part of the character and it is something that has to be brought up in his standalone film.

Its obvious that people are getting sick of origin story movies and I think it would help the DC cinematic universe if they took the same approach that they took in Suicide Squad and give Barry a quick overview at the beginning, set up some of the motivation for the Flashpoint storyline, then get into the action.

Its establishing a character, the things that drive him and lets him get straight to doing something about it instead of taking the time to have him learn how to use his powers and go through his origin story. This way we get the Flash, we have him doing his thing, and the Flashpoint also allows for Barry to have his own outing where its just him and we're not questioning where the rest of the Justice League is.

Now I've mentioned this before, this will not be a direct adaptation of the comic. All the members of the Justice League will not be in this film and I don't think I want them to be. But I think you can have a couple of additions and cameos to fix the timeline and give additional screen time to other heroes.

Here's a great example. Cyborg has a big role in the comic books as he is the hero trying to get a force together to stop the impending doom about to roll up on our world. Let him be in the movie to flesh out that role and show us what Cyborg can do, even if its him in an alternate dimension.

And what do you know, Ray Fisher has been confirmed as a cast member in The Flash standalone film... interesting... very interesting.

And like I said, it will be very difficult to get the entire Justice League back together for a Flash standalone film. Not saying it can't be done, (Captain America: Civil War) but I think DC wants to give The Flash his own standalone film so he can do his thing. So maybe that's where it ends. Maybe this is all a pipe dream and there's no way to make this happen.

But here's the part that gets me interested.

Remember, Thomas Wayne has a huge role in The Flashpoint story. The Flash is basically teaming up with Batman in this story and it couldn't be Ben Affleck's Batman.

Now Thomas Wayne has already been casted in the DC Cinematic universe, and he wasn't a no name actor... Thomas Wayne is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Batman v Superman.

Now again, this is all speculation. Morgan has been in Zach Snyder's films before, its very possible that they are just friends and Morgan wanted a role in Batman v Superman, no matter how small. But think about it, why would they cast a very well known actor as a character that dies after maybe thirty seconds of screen time? It doesn't really make a lot of sense.

On top of that, Morgan has expressed interest in playing Thomas Wayne again, and even said he wouldn't mind playing Thomas Wayne in the TV series when they did the Flashpoint storyline.

Now again, take this all with a grain of salt since nothing has been confirmed. But just let that all marinate with you. It allows for The Flash to have his own awesome storyline, it utilizes actors who have been drastically underutilized, and you don't need all the Justice League to do it. The Flash could be a very cheap (relative to the other DC films) film to make, and it could expand the DC universe to make it more interesting.

Is it gonna happen? Again, probably not. But I love the idea and I'm going to be speculating about it until I hear otherwise.

But what do you think? Do you like The Flashpoint Paradox? Do you think they could inject it into the DC cinematic universe? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So they're definitely doing Flashpoint for Season 3 of The Flash. I still have to watch Season 2 but after watching The Flashpoint Paradox, I want to watch all of Season 2 to get caught up and watch this in October. Here's the trailer for Season 3. Enjoy!