Review: Lego DC Superheroes: The Flash Movie

Review: Lego DC Superheroes: The Flash Movie

Welcome back to Comics And… I’m posting again (because I’m procrastinating in studying for my class).

Story 4.5/5 stars

Animation: 4/5 stars (I mean, fine for a Lego movie)
Recommended age: All ages!!!

My son loves Legos. Probably because Legos are awesome. He and I share a love of superhero stories. Combined this results in watching a lot of Lego superhero themed stuff. We aren’t much of a Marvel family (although Lego Loki is a lot of fun) so he and I were pretty excited to watch the new(ish) Lego DC movie, The Flash.

In the past a majority of the Lego DC world has focused on Batman and the Bat-family and then slowly expanded into the Justice League. They even had appearances by the Legion in previous movies. Flash has not gotten much attention until now. Basically, they pull a lot of Flash’s personality from the Animated Series (even though Lego uses Barry, not Wally) but considering the kid-friendly focus it makes sense to have more of a happy and beloved Flash.

First, the good.

Pretty much everything. It was a cute story that starts off with a time loop scenario. Often time loops can be tedious and annoying but Lego keeps it short and even humorous.

The movie starts with the Atom being shown around JL headquarters as a prospective member. We get an appearance from both Ace the Bathound and Krypto. The Atom quickly dubs them (sarcastically) “superpets” which makes me enjoy this movie even more. Superpets are one of the most absurd concepts in the comic book realm and I always appreciate a cameo or two. As a bonus my son also loves the superpets (especially Ace).

The overall plot is decent. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece of storytelling here but it’s an easy to follow story despite time travel. The main bad guy is, of course, Reverse Flash, and Barry keeps running faster and faster to try and catch him allowing Reverse Flash to dump him in a time loop.

The part that was really well done with the time loop was how Barry keeps wrapping up all the tasks he had on the first time through the loop to the point where he delivers a bad guy to the JL before any crime was attempted.

Thankfully the writers only use the time loop as a starting point. The second part of the movie is split into 3 main stories – the Atom being stuck in his small mode, the JL trying to figure out what the Reverse Flash is up to, and Barry trying to tap back into the speed force.

My absolute favorite moment was Ch’p (or B’dg as I can’t tell them apart and missed the name when they said it – the Squirrel Green Lantern) showing up to help and being lumped in with the other superpets.

Now, the bad

Nothing was actually bad. All the Lego stuff has pretty obvious morals embedded into their stories which can get tiresome for an adult but are important for all the kids watching (this movie was stuff like take the time to slow down and have a plan). All the Lego media my son and I watch tends to have lessons like never give up, and always stand by your friends. This stuff gets pretty hammered in but for the elementary crowd its fairly appropriate.

Of course, Lego is trying to sell their products so they always have fancy new stuff you can buy in some kit being used for their movies. If your kids are bad about that kind of thing you may want to be warned ahead of time that there are absolutely several new DC Lego sets based on this movie (I don’t have this issue, but I know some parents like to know about all the product promotion).

Finally, Zantanna was pretty awful in this movie. Z is such a cool character and she was pretty much a throwaway in this story and written completely out of context. It was a weird call and strangely involved a musical number.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this movie for those of you with kids or those of you who are young at heart. I know my son and I will end up watching it again.