2023 is shaping up to be the year that giant Hollywood franchises try to tell us that they are too sprawling and layered and beholden to their fanbases for their own good. It’s like they are crying out for help.

Between Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse declaring the canon to be an existential threat to multiversal stability and The Flash gaudily colliding planets worth of continuity against one another (both examples are literal at the textual level), both Marvel and DC film properties can’t help but be gasping for breath under the massive weight of unbearable, multi-dimensional lore-making.

And yet, both Marvel and DC want to have their cakes and eat them, too, as they make laborious nods to the unwieldy Gordian knots of their own creation while also reveling in the synergistic team-ups and nesting doll-like allusions that made both franchises box office draws in the first place.

If it sounds like I’m being overly cynical, let me assure you I am Continue reading The Flash (2023) Movie Review →