Who Thought This Was Worth Releasing?

• The Flash
• Directed by Andy Muschietti
• June 12, 2023 (Grauman’s Chinese Theatre) / June 16, 2023 (US)
• Based on the DC Comics character created by writer Robert Kanigher and penciler Carmine Infantino

A young man uses his powers to travel in time to prevent his mother’s death resulting in unintended consequences for the entire world.

When I first heard The Flash was actually getting a solo movie, I was excited. I wasn’t crazy excited, but the idea of the character from Justice League (take your pick on which version) looked good to me. I expected something entertaining but as DC leadership changed and reports of re-shoots and assorted other stories began to leak I developed my doubts. I became very concerned because I just couldn’t see how anything good come from something with so much drama surrounding its making. 

And then The Flash came out and I started hearing people bring up just how bad it was. They took shots at the story or the CGI and I couldn’t believe it was that bad. It sounded like people were making mountains out of molehills in order to justify not liking it. In my perception it can become ‘trendy’ to dislike certain things and I felt this might have fallen into that. So in that spirit, I decided to give it a look. 

I am here to say that The Flash is a film that borders on unwatchable at times and just terrible at others. Part of it rests squarely on the shoulder of Ezra Miller and his performance as Barry Allen. The manic and hyper nature of the character may work for a supporting character, but it certainly doesn’t work for a main character that is in just about every scene of the movie-sometimes twice. They even hang a bit of a lantern on that last bit but that doesn’t help things at all. You just want Barry to shut up and go away.

The CGI used is as bad as they say. There are decades old videogame graphics that exceed what we got here. I know director Andy Muschietti has used the excuse that we’re often seeing it from Barry’s perspective but that’s just a half assed excuse for a poor product. It is CW quality thought in the early seasons The Flash looked better than it did by the end.

We get a decidedly fake looking opener with Barry helping Bruce (Ben Affleck as a decidedly more Joss Whedon than Zack Snyder Batman) deal with a collapsing hospital. I know it is something that could only be achieved with heavy CGI but it just looks so fake. Add in the heavy humor and it completely undercuts anything they are doing. This is amped up Marvel humor making the story border on a poorly made comedy.

Humor is fine, but too much humor even with a character that’s not dark and brooding can ruin everything. And the humor level in this film does just that. This is an attempt to be Marvel. But why? Why watch a cheap copy? If you want Marvel then watch Marvel.

In a film where Barry’s desire to save his mother tears reality asunder nothing feels important. From the need to put things right to Barry’s crush on Iris (Kiersey Clemons), none of it feels like it is important either to the characters and thus to the audience as well. Then again this is the next to last tepid gasp of a dead film universe. You know there will be no sequel. It’s hard to get beyond any of my aforementioned issues to actually invest in the story because of that.

The animated film Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox used the same basics for its plot as well as connecting to another DC animated project yet did a far superior job on every level in comparison to this film. It is like they just gave up. At some point it stopped mattering to them.

And on that note, I found myself losing interest in the movie as it was playing. Minor distractions took me away, and I realized I missed chunks of The Flash. But the worst part was that because of how bad what I had seen was I had no interest in going back and seeing what I missed. It just wasn’t worth picking up my remote and rewinding it. An easy thing to do that was too much effort to do.

The only real draw is to see another go round with Michael Keaton as Batman. But so? Why not watch him in a good movie such as Batman? Why watch him in this crap? It was certainly much more hyped than anything else connected to the film-the troubled star included-which speaks volumes to the faith those at WB had in their film.

Something else struck. Ever see Jaws 2? You could tell Roy Scheider did not want to be there from start to finish. He was clearly going through the motions in that film. I often saw the same in The Flash. Not consistently but often-sometimes in the same scene. I think when the reshoots occurred or even during the course of production the actors realized they were in a festering turd that was getting progressively worse. That feeling was often too much to hide and it showed in their performance.

And I admit to being a little upset that in a way they bastardized Man of Steel for their story. This is the equivalent to what JJ Abrams did with Wrath of Khan for his second Star Trek outing. Were they trying to court the fanbase with an alternative version of Henry Cavill’s only proper Superman movie? I’m not sure why they thought that would work if that was the case.

What is more amazing is that Andy Muschietti turned in a terrible film yet apparently is still being employed by DC for future superhero movies. How does that work? Either he’s a real smooth talker or results don’t matter at Warner Brothers. How did he get picked for The Brave and the Bold after this mess? I am boggled by that.

From my rough draft to this, I removed a great deal as it just felt like nitpicking but there IS so much wrong here. Ultimately The Flash is a giant festering turd that should be considered a crime against film and avoided at all cost. Don’t waste your time.