Really dumb shitass.

The DC Extended Universe is dead, long live the DC Universe. And what better way to groom the new universe into existence than with a professional groomer, and of course I’m talking about Ezra Miller. I bet Ezra Miller would like the ability to go back in time on account of all the children there were left to be groomed who are now adults, and all the alcohol left to be stolen. What a waste of good alcohol and I’m not going to finish this joke.

Way back in who cares 2022 we learned from James Gunn that the DC Extended Universe would be rebooted. Subsequently public interest in final films has gone down like Ezra Miller on, you know what I’ll just leave this one in the air as well. The Flash had a lot of things going against it, being kind of the last film in a franchise people didn’t like leading into two more movies nobody cares about that will presumably have no consequence on a reboot nobody asked for.

The positive side is that DC is finally chasing that Marvel money, because the MCU is turning into a big financial flop as well. To say The Flash shit the bed is an understatement, because it got on the list of biggest flops of all time. How bad was the flop? Warner Bros. tried to sell the film on NFT. That’s how you know the grift is getting desperate. Wanna know what a failure that venture was? Only 800 were sold.

So The Flash bombed and Blue Beetle apparently is really good but also bombed, and soon enough Aquaman and the Lost Oh Yeah Amber Heard Is In This Film is set to finalize the DCEU and fully get us into the DCU. I can’t wait. Oh wait, I can. And so can everyone else.

But let’s talk about The Flash. Oddly enough I actually liked the first act of this movie. I think by now everyone knows the scene that I’m talking about. The film kicks off with Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) assisting Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in stopping some crimes in Gotham City. This leads to a scene where Barry microwaves an infant, and there’s a whole slow motion scene of him saving a bunch of babies falling from a building. The babies look terrible and the CG in this film is awful but it does feel like the kind of comic stupidity that would get me enjoying comic book movies again.

This is the kind of thing the DCEU should have been from the beginning, allowing for more silliness instead of trying to go stupidly grimdark with the early films. As Hawkeye rightfully said in the Avengers film, “the city is flying and we’re fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense.” Embrace the utter stupidity of the situation and have fun with it.

After learning he has the ability to go back in time, Barry does the obvious and prevents 9/11. I’m just kidding, he goes back and saves his mom, but loses his powers in the process and unleashes a greater evil. A second Ezra Miller. Even if you’re one of the popcorn sucking public who completely missed Ezra Miller’s real life antics, I’m pretty sure we can all agree that Miller’s Flash did not deserve a headlining role in a film. And even worse is the idea of two Ezra Millers headlining a film, because Ezra has one of those voices that makes you want to microwave an infant.

Two Ezra Millers in a film is the cinematic experience equivalent of when you accidentally drink a coffee ground that gets into your cup and you can’t swallow it or cough it up, it just gets lodged in your throat for the next two hours.

Ruining the space time continuum, Barry finds that the world is completely changed. His mom and dad are still around, sure, but now Batman is played by Michael Keaton and Superman looks like a fourteen year old girl. Even worse, they brought back General Zod (Michael Shannon). Can The Flash and The Flash figure out how to prevent the space time continuum from collapsing before it’s too late? Sure. Can they save the DCEU from being terrible? They’re not miracle workers.

The Flash looks like a cutscene from a mid-generation PlayStation 4 game, it feels ambitious in the sense that trying to fuse a cat with a Pinto. It’s ambitious, sure, but nobody asked for it to be done and there’s very little faith in the end product being a dead cat stuffed in a car’s glovebox. And the fact that the film spends so much time acknowledging how annoying having two Barrys on screen is doesn’t change the fact that having two Barrys on screen is really annoying.

Michael Keaton seems to be the only one genuinely having fun on the set of this movie, outside of maybe Sasha Calle who again looks like she’s not old enough to get her learners permit. Keaton shakes like a child at Christmas morning when the camera pans to his face and he gets to deliver the “I’m Batman” line. Otherwise the film seems to knowingly amplify everything annoying about Miller on the feeling that it might come around full circle and become a positive trait. It doesn’t. I’ve never rooted for the main character to be unceremoniously killed off in his own film before this.

The Flash is like your colonoscopy. You know it’s coming, and you can put it off as long as you want, but eventually you’re going to have to let Ezra Miller slide a finger in your butthole and wiggle it around for two and a half hours. And then it’s over and you can go home ashamed and I guess relieved you didn’t have to pay more than your HBO Max subscription to watch it. If you have anything, and I do mean anything, else to do with your time, you should do that instead. Like watching Tubi movies.

Extra points for Ezra Miller microwaving an infant.

Rating: D+