As a big budget superhero blockbuster that features a fan favorite comic book character finally headlining their first solo movie, one that incorporates the multiverse and ropes in both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton as alternate versions of Batman, there’s clearly going to be a whole lot of spectacle on display in The Flash.
The FanDome sizzle reel hinted that Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen is gathering a multiversal team to try and stave off whatever villain ends up threatening the very fabric of reality, so we’re guaranteed to see some massive set pieces on both a visual and logistical level.
However, director Andy Muschietti isn’t forgetting about the story, after revealing in an interview at the Chinese edition of FanDome that his number one priority was continuing Barry’s journey on a personal level.
“Mainly the emotional aspects of the story were very compelling to me. Obviously, it’s a superhero movie, it’s a big spectacle adventure, but what really brought me into it was the emotional power of it. There’s an emotional message in the story, it’s also a time-traveling story which is always very attractive to me. Time travel has something that is inherently compelling in general, but this one is very special because it’s a very intimate conflict. It’s about a boy who is looking for his mother, and that’s what was so attractive to me, that emotional drive.”
Ron Livingston may have replaced the SnyderVerse’s Billy Crudup as Henry Allen, but Barry’s determination to prove his father’s innocence and discover the truth about what happened to his mother is evidently a storyline that’s going to play a huge role in The Flash.
Action is all well and good, not to mention obligatory for the genre, but it won’t mean much in the grand scheme of things if audiences don’t have a reason to invest in or care about The Flash‘s narrative.