Faster than a Speeding Mullet

Title:  The Flash

Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away:  This is the movie pilot of the television series you’ve probably never seen.

Introduction:  I bought this VHS at Good Will for one dollar.  Well worth it.

Location:  This takes place throughout an entire city, which for a television show is not that uncommon.

Plot:  This is the movie pilot of what would eventually become a failed series for whatever reasons.  It begins with a criminal scientist being hit by lightning and gaining special powers, mainly the ability of speed.   A lot of development is made on the side of the bad guys- a group of thug bikers who want to overthrow the government or some such typical nonsense- as well as some of the supporting characters.   At times it feels like The Flash himself got a stronger role in the animated Justice League series, but, you know, who am I to complain for a live action version of The Flash?

                I will say that this movie drags out for quite some time in terms of finally getting to see The Flash costume on the box.   At first, he has a suit without the mask and that’s used quite a bit.  It seems to take forever to finally see him in his official Flash suit, but more on the suit later.

Acting:  The acting isn’t bad, but it isn’t great.   I attribute that largely to the fact that I have no idea who any of these actors are and if they are still working it’s probably on soap operas.

Production:  For what it was, it looked pretty good.

Sex/Nudity:  Since this was a television show in the 1990’s, the obvious answer is no.

Special Effects:  The really big special effect in this all is actually the way that the Flash runs.  I mean, how do you have someone still visible to your audience watching at home when in reality he is moving so fast that he can’t be seen by the naked eye?   They pull this ghost technique off in a rather good way, but it still looks kind of odd.   I don’t know, for the time I guess it was the best that they could do.   While watching this, I wondered aloud how this would look if it was made today.   Then I quickly shot down the question, realizing that not only would he simply look like Clark Kent running fast in Smallville.   Heck, they even had a Flash-like character on the show.

Overall Verdict:  This should very easily be one of those cheesy, cult comic book movies made before the first Spider-Man (or X-Men) when people didn’t necessarily know what they were doing and the special effects weren’t quite good enough to get there anyway.   I just wish he would have been in the Flash costume more.  I am aware that this turned into a series, so there was plenty of time for that later on, but still.  Plus he kind of looks like a red version of The Tick without his mask.