Is The New LEGO Flash Movie The Best Justice League Blu-ray Released Today?

When LEGO first started collaborating with DC superheroes for direct-to-video movies, they initially played like old episodes of Super Friends. The familiar heroes in PG-safe adventures, rarely taking self-aware advantage of the whole LEGO conceit specifically. But as the first one featuring the core Justice League heroes (there's also a Super Hero Girls one, but that's practically a different property) to open since The LEGO Batman Movie made over $311 worldwide, LEGO DC Super Heroes: The Flash feels like it's taking a slightly different turn. It's not just that it's more comedic--the bulk of the plot is basically Groundhog Day if it starred The Flash--but also the concept of LEGO bricks is more integral to the plot, and the usual slick CG is starting to get more textured and closer to looking like actual real-world LEGO, as it does in the theatrical movies.

It seems like a confusing bit of synergy to release this to Blu-ray on the same day as the live-action Justice League, but the calculation may be that kids are most likely to gravitate to Ezra Miller's Flash, and will want more. And while the continuities are quite different, LEGO's Flash, voiced by the ever-versatile James Arnold Taylor, is essentially the same cocky but inexperienced kid. If there's bonus synergy because after seeing this, kids may learn there's also a Flash on TV every week, well, that's a bonus for DC and WB.

The Flash also leans heavily on The Atom (Eric Bauza), which may be a way of preempting the Ant-Man movie sequel by reminding kids that DC has a shrinking hero too. Initially, the movie even appears to be the Atom's story, as it begins with Ray Palmer's alter-ego being show around the Hall of Justice in preparation for membership. We learn here, comedically and somewhat arbitrarily, that he's afraid of pets. Flash doesn't actually even show up until almost the end of the first act, as the team attempts to save Metropolis from the Joker (Jason Spisak, impersonating Mark Hamill) who has climbed to the top of the Daily Planet building to spread laughing gas and make over the town in clown chic.


The Flash shows up late, having taken detours to eat a donut, thwart Captain Cold, run to another city to get a milkshake, busted Captain Boomerang, and finally beat the Joker, but not before the clown prince of crime has dressed Batman (Troy Baker, sounding like a Zapp Brannigan/Diedrich Bader hybrid) up as a clown, naturally infuriating him. All seems well until, vibrating at a speed only Flash can see, a blurry yellow villain appears: Reverse Flash (Dwight Schultz), who claims to be faster than the actual Flash, goads him into a race that ultimately gets so fast it warps time, and Flash wakes up again that same morning, reliving the day again. And again. And more...

Ultimately, and unsurprisingly to anyone who knows Flash lore, it turns out Reverse Flash knows a lot more about speed powers than Barry Allen does, and is using that to his advantage, keeping Allen occupied while building himself up as the world's greatest super hero and making the Justice League irrelevant. Flash ultimately find himself stripped of his powers, and forced to prove himself as a hero all over again before he can regain them.

The use of LEGO is clever throughout, as the story features two heroes who can change things on a molecular level (Atom and Firestorm) and do so by rearranging the toy bricks. Meanwhile, bricks imbued with the power of the Speed Force--and items built from them--prove integral to the climactic showdown. Plastic Man rebuilding himself in different brick forms isn't quite the same as we normally expect from him; the guy always felt more melty than bricky, but at least this gives the LEGO toy designers multiple ideas for what to do with him later.

Schultz, whom many of us grew up loving as the goofball Murdoch on The A-Team, voices Reverse Flash as if he were a frustrated, classically trained actor, and as a comedy take it's wonderfully pompous. In a more left-field choice, Kevin Michael Richardson voices Dr. Fate as a magical Barry White, complete with his own musical number and groovy space convertible. Maybe he's being groomed to cash in on Black Panther's success.

It's a fun and funny kid-safe adventure of the sort neither Zack Snyder nor Joss Whedon were ever going to conceive, with a few more sophisticated nods than usual, but the lack of extras is frustrating. There's room for more than a 78-minute movie on one Blu-ray disc; next time, can we maybe make it a double-feature? But yes, LEGO and WB, more DTV movies with a tone like this, please.