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Movie Review: The Flashpoint Paradox

Flashpoint is the storyline that set off the New52 reboot for DC Comics. Now, it's been immortalized in film. The film takes the time to reboot the DC Animated Universe. That's right folks, Teen Titans Go is now cannon. I'm getting word that Teen Titans Go isn't cannon, but it's pretty funny. Anyway Flashpoint reboots the animated universe with a few small differences from the comics.

Barry Allen defeats The Rogues and Professor Zoom who manipulated them into planing bombs on themselves. Luckily Flash had called for help and the Justice League arrived. This was a cool moment as they diffuse the bombs in different ways. They continue to make Aquaman lame by having him let algae eat the bomb. Really?

Barry goes to look at his mother's grave and wonders what would happen if he had saved her. Iris tells him that it's not his fault. Barry wakes up at his desk at work and sees Wonder Woman and Aquaman at war. He runs to the rescue but realized he doesn't have his speed and just made himself look stupid at work. He goes outside to see his mother. He's shocked. She just wants to go out for her birthday. He tries to tell her that something is wrong. She just assumed that he was finally telling her he was gay. Barry freaks out and wonders why his mom thinks he's gay.

Switch over to Gotham and we see Batman shooting villains before he refuses to join Cyborg's team to bring down Aquaman and Wonder Woman. Barry shows up in the Batcave while Batman is drinking and almost get's murdered for calling Batman Bruce. Barry finally realizes what's going on when he sees that Batman is actually an alcoholic Thomas Wayne and Bruce died that night in the alley. Thomas is an alcoholic so he agrees to electrocute Barry a few times to see if he really does get his powers back and almost dies in the process.

Then my feelings get touched. The team goes to get Superman who is locked in a lab. The government found his ship in this timeline and locked him underground, he never saw the sunlight and he's emaciated with no control over his powers. But he understands the word friends. He saves the gang from an ambush but his powers freak out again and he kills a lot of people. He flies off in fear of his own power.

The crew argues and then they head to Europe to stop the war with the help of the Shazam kids because now there's 5 of them who need to combine to make Shazam (I want to say Captain Marvel so much). They really made Shazam into Captain Planet. They get there an Aquaman is decimating the Amazonians. The war apparently started because Mera found out Aquaman was sleeping with Wonder Woman. Then attacked. Wonder Woman won and wears Mera's crown as a trophy.

The three sides fight in the war alongside the revolutionaries (Consisting of Lois Lane alongside Lex Luthor and Deathsroke's army for peace). Wonder Woman really strangled Shazam with her lasso until he said Shazam (Do you see how stupid it is to say Shazam uses the word Shazam to transform into Shazam). Afterwards she kills the kids on screen. Wonder Woman is a kid killer. Meanwhile Aquaman is trying to kill Cyborg in a fight that showed both of them being awesome. They acknowledged Aquaman's super strength and he even got sniped in the fight and shrugged it off showing his durability. They showed Cyborg using a ton of his gadgets while still commanding his team. Superman shows up when Aquaman starts gaining the upperhand.

Flash and Batman battle Professor Zoom who is behind all this. Zoom is about to finish off Flash but he gets cocky and Batman shoots him in the head, because this isn't Bruce Wayne. Flash runs fast enough to reverse time and let his mother die, but you can never fix it completely. Flash and Batman are discussing what happened in their New52 suits. Bruce doesn't believe it until Flash gives him a note from Thomas. Bruce acknowledges it's his dad's handwriting

That's the summary there's a lot of other cool things in here that you should see. Lois and the revolutionaries. Lex and Slade (Deathstroke) taking on Aquaman. This is one of the few animated films that acknowledges Slade's healing factor with Aquaman noting how hard it is to kill him. There's a lot of B Class heroes that make appearances as alternate versions of themselves.

Most of the story stayed the same between comics and film. The major differences is Lex replaced his dad, they show both have Aqualad in his Young Justice appearance fighting alongside Tempest. Flash doesn't meet Pandora in the film. Those are the key differences but again there's some small changes made just to get popular characters in like Hal Jordan and a Russian version of Jason Todd as Red Hood who got along well with Thomas Wayne.

Overall it's another solid showing from DC Comics. Marvel really needs to step up in the animation department. DC should probably release a good live action movie. I enjoyed that while there were a few changes they stayed really true to the comics. This one is probably a much watch, not just because it's really good but because it rebooted the animated universe too.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet


Darrell S.

Hey, I write stuff, a lot of different stuff, that's all.

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