Review: The Flash

The Flash sees a super-hero go back in time to save his mother, and runs into the usual time-travel, alternate realities problem. Starring Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck as two conflicting Batmen.I faintly remember The Flash from my childhood, and even back then I could tell there wasn't much to it. I mean, running ridiculously fast is, let's face it, a pretty B-minus skill. One minute he's here, then he's there. That's it. But for some reason, The Flash proved to have legs, so to speak, so his writers had to come up with something to do with him. And they finally settled on - thank you, Albert Einstein - time travel. The speed of light equals time travel, apparently, and when Barry Allen is already a geeky, neurotic kid whose problems all stem from the death of his mother, you can see why time travel might appeal.He confers with his partner in crime-fighting - another chap with dead parent issues, billionaire Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, aka in this iteration Ben Affleck. Bruce's advice, as always in comic books, is "don't tamper". The old butterfly effect, remember? One tiny change in your past and who knows what might happen?But Barry won't be told. He Flashes back, he sees Mum and Dad - and also Barry Mark 2. This version is a lovable idiot Barry. Time to set him straight.It soon becomes clear that Barry 1 may have avoided the death of his mother, and subsequent arrest of his father, but there's now a whole lot of other changes going on.The only person who can help Barry now is his old buddy Bruce Wayne. Except Bruce has gone through a few changes himself.In this dimension... time-line... whatever you want to call it... Batman's pretty much given up crime-fighting. But all it takes is two rival Flashes, one super-villain from a completely different movie and the possibility of a catchup with Superman himself to get him back in the Batmobile.But which Superman, we wonder? Will we go back to the late Christopher Reeve, or the even later George Reeves from the rickety Fifties TV series? These days AI can seemingly do anything.But it turns out to be neither of the above. In this time-line, meet Supergirl, Kara.Now I'm on record for being multiverse-unfriendly - whether it's the latest Spiderman hotch-potch, the aptly-named Multiverse of Madness, or even Oscar-winning video-game mashups like Everything Everywhere All At Once. Too much stuff, not enough real people, to put my objections in a nutshell…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details