We Agree: The Flash (was bad)

2023, Andy Muschietti (It) -- cinema

So, I guess I have a new benchmark for bad movies? And I don't mean Bad Movies, like the creature features and disaster flicks that I so love, but terribly executed blockbusters that are just not well done. And also not incredibly well executed flicks that I just don't care for, because I don't like the execution style (e.g. Thor: Love & Thunder; I have since tried to rewatch this movie, twice, only to solidify my dislike for it). This movie just made so many, so very very many, bad choices.

Of note, I will write this up in my drafts with a smattering of my thoughts, and then once Kent has posted his ... post, I will (have) add(ed) in some direct response/reactions to his commentary. Probably just a lot of shouting, "This! I meant this!"

Andy Muschietti looks like the supporting character in a bad action movie, either the sleazy side-kick drug dealer, or hench goon to an Eastern European arms dealer. Not sure why I have to share that, but there it is. And he does his cameo as someone who has their hotdog stolen by the Flash. Speaking of cameos, yes that was Nicolaj Coster-Waldau getting his pizza stolen by the Flash. I know he was in Mama but I guess they are not ... friends?

I don't like Ezra Miller, and I am pretty sure that was before they came out as a sleaze bag. I didn't like their meant-to-be-sympathetic villain in the Fantastic Beasts movies, but was only mildly amused by them in the Justice League movies. They were pretty much playing themself in Asking for It and The Stand, which is to say a messed up asshole. So, I am not sure I would have been able to connect with them as The Hero on any level, especially since the whole motivation of this movie is for us to sympathize with him (this stays, as the character is a Him) despite having obviously flawed choices.

Now if I was a Big DC Superhero Fan, I might be able to sidestep whom they have cast as Barry Allen, for the sake of seeing your Hero on the big screen. But, despite being an avid comics reader for three decades, I was never really immersed in any of the DC characters outside of Superman, Batman and The Sandman. I know I have read tons of Bronze Age comics but I cannot say I really know much about The Flash nor Barry Allen. He was probably just the supporting Justice League-r in whatever  I was reading, and I definitely did not read any Flash comics directly. I also did not watch the CW show. I don't know his proper character so cannot be offended by this portrayal, and yet...

I am relating this to say I have no particular expectations for the character, but yet I still think of the character style choices of Miller as just fundamentally flawed. At least in Justice League movies, he was just somewhat irritating, but they wanted a younger, eager character so I went with that. But here, he just seems... off. As Kent says:

"...this character, who is twitchy, anxiety-addled, seemingly neurodivergent (except when he's not), is inconsistently written and likewise inconsistently played. Whatever type of person Barry Allen is supposed to be, Miller either struggles to find him, or struggles to convey him."

And don't get me started on Barry 2.

OK, I have jumped quickly into the I Don't Like-s without really saying what the movie is about.

This is The Flash after the Snyderverse Justice League movie, after they have pulled together as a team and saved the world (at least once). But the movie opens with Barry Allen again late to his Crime Lab job, which they kind of hint as being related to his superhero duties but also to him just being... late. Hah hah, fastest man alive is always late. But then, related to his superhero duties, he is whining about being the "cleanup man", always being called in to support the League instead of leading the way. The movie solidifies this via a 20-odd minute sequence focused on saving babies, and a therapy dog, from a collapsing building, while Batman chases down the Bad Guys and their weapon of mass destruction. He is initially sent in to deal with the water & power. The babies are collateral damage.

I am thinking here that one of the Purple Suits told Muschietti that he had to do a Dead Pool style opening sequence, focused on the irreverent comedy. Oooo!!  Babies in danger! One's going to be splashed with acid, another is going to be squashed! Barry has to do a weird Rube Goldberg in ultra-slowmo to save all the babies, and the dog, and the nurse, within the seconds he has. Also while snacking. Barry's "snack hole" seems to be a running gag all through this movie -- see above cameos.

But this sequence was just bad. It looked bad, it set a wrong tone, it just did all the things badly. Did I say it looked bad? This is a decade-ago level video game cut scene CGI. The movie literally begins by establishing our hero as a clown. And it contributes nothing to the rest of the movie.

This leads (in no way whatsoever) to Barry once again lamenting about the past, and his mother's death, and his father's unjust persecution. The evidence at hand all seems circumstantial, but its enough to convict, and despite Barry's chosen profession, he is not able to point out the flaw in the justice system. Instead, Barry runs away into The Past. Well, no not quite, into The Bad CGI Time Arena !!

You see, The Flash is able to run (in his incredibly stupid looking way) so fast that he ... enters the multiverse? Oh, I have no idea what they are trying to convey. Is it a mythical place? Is it a cognitive representation of the access he has while in the Speed Force? Is it just sciency-fiency gobblety gook to cause Barry to "break the Universe" for the sake of his mom? Yes folks, yes it is. Barry sees his chance, and despite knowing its a bad choice, he tweaks the past allowing his mother to survive. Not sure how though; just because his father never goes to get tomatoes, does that stop Random Murderer on coming into the house? Does his father fight off said Murderer? Do they even explain what said Murderer was all about, like all proper Uncle Ben moments do? Nope, Barry changes the past which changes the (a) future but he returns to... ten years in the past. Why? No reason but Plot Thickening. 

You see, Barry has fucked things up, as changing one point in the past doesn't just change the future but also changes the past even further. Everything is messed up. And altered. Or so he learns from Batman, but not his Batman (Ben Affleck) but the Michael Keaton Batman, who actually did a pretty good job making the world a safer place, and has retired. BUT the Justice League never appeared, Superman is not on the scene, Arthur Curry was never born, Wonder Woman is probably still hanging out of Amazon Island (the place where all the brown boxes are born) and nobody is around to fight with Zod when he shows up ready to fuck the Earth up. Oh, they do find a Superman alternate/sub-in in Supergirl, the scowling, traumatized cousin tortured in a Russian gulag for years, but that doesn't matter. This Universe, or at the very least, the Earth in this Universe, is fucked. And there is nothing that the Barry's, and Batman can do about it.

So, Barry has to go back into the Time Arena of Incredibly Rubbery CGI, to Not Save His Mom. Barry 2 is not happy about that, nor is Scary Barry. But, hey, contemplative other Supermen from other Universe Nickelodeon Spheres are watching. So he leaves the tomatoes on the shelf, albeit with one minor tweak, and the world is fixed. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. I still like George Clooney Batman.

Did I like anything about the movie? I actually liked Scowly Supergirl, in what little characterization she had. As Kent said, "she's a presence more than a character." I liked seeing the updated Keaton Batman fighting with 2023 choreography. I liked seeing the Nick Cage Superman sphere. And I did chuckle a few times, at moments they wanted me to, and I was moved a few times, at points they wanted me to be, so I guess I was more entertained than disappointed? I mean, how could I be disappointed when I went knowing it was going to be terrible? It was, in fact, more terrible than I expected but... "it's good-bye and good riddance to the Snyderverse." So hey, we got that.

Where the quotes came from, in the Kent-iverse.