SPOILERS! I waited this long to post my thoughts on THE FLASH movie, so most folks who wanted to had a chance to see it. This is NOT about Ezra Miller’s dumpster-fire real life; it is about the movie.
I didn’t mind it while watching it, but the further into the movie we got, the more it unraveled – the story and the CG. Producers delivering bad SFX and backpedaling to call it “intentional” seemed desperate to me. Iris West had ZERO chemistry with Barry Allen. The falling babies sequence hurt my head, starting with WHERE in the hospital the nursery was located. WHY did they have to use ZOD again? Doesn’t THE FLASH in the comic books have a wild rogues gallery of villains to choose from? If they HAD to use Zod, why not be SMART about it?
That’s the key to the movie – NOT being smart.
I have EXACTLY the same problem with THE FLASH that I had with SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME: The adult in the room has to behave like a fucking idiot or the story doesn’t function.
In SPIDER-MAN, Peter Parker went for help to Doctor Strange, the adult who most helped save the cosmos outside his mentor Tony Stark All Stephen Strange had to do was ask a few adult questions: “What problems are you trying to solve? Have you tried writing your intended college asking them to reconsider? Should I reach out to them? Or perhaps Pepper Stark, head of Stark Industries, could speak on your behalf? Are you sure you want EVERYone to forget you? Me? The Avengers? Trusted family or friends?“ A three-minute grown-up conversation from the adult in the room would’ve prevented a catastrophe. Instead, Doctor Strange had to be a fucking idiot.
Similarly, THE FLASH expected us to believe that BATMAN, the world’s greatest detective, was too stupid or clueless to ask some basic questions of the FLASHes, one of whom was still a kid and the other an awkward adult who clearly depended upon the guidance of “his” Batman, How about: “How precisely did the Superman of your world defeat Zod? Did your Batman, knowing of such super-powered aliens, just let them do their own thing, or did he figure out a weakness? What’s this Kryptonite you mentioned? Can we track its radiation signature? Let’s hunt down some kryptonite.“ He’d be the adult and strategize. But instead of being the world’s greatest detective, he too behaved like a fucking idiot. The so-called greatest detective is more to blame for the failure than the Barry Allens.
I had zero use for the Aquaman tag, and the George Clooney Bruce Wayne ending, played for laughs, only confused things. I think they could have used ALL THREE of the endings they filmed, scattered across the end credits, which would’ve been more interesting than the confusing Clooney-as-Batman tag. .
Sure, I loved seeing Keaton back as Batman and wished he’d used the Batmobile at some point. Instead of hermit Bruce living alone, though, I’d have far more enjoyed Flash dropping in on Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer enjoying a night away from their usual socializing.
Sure, the poorly CG’d cameos from Christopher Reeve, Adam West, and so on were sweet, building on what Berlanti’s similarly-themed Crisis on Infinite Earths attempted to do, none of it contributed to the story. and characters just stood around and posed. It delivered nothing beyond the most basic fan service.
I hoped finally for something amazing from the DC films. This wasn’t it.
