Early into The Flash, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller)—a.k.a. The Flash himself—is in Gotham City, saving average citizens from falling buildings and sinkholes, as is a superhero’s obligation. He’s got Alfred (Jeremy Irons) on the phone, giving him updates on when Barry could expect Gotham’s actual savior to arrive.
“I am essentially the janitor of the Justice League,” Barry tells Alfred, who’s well-aware; it’s the Batman’s messes that the Flash is usually called in to clean up. A superhero fan who’s been waiting for Barry Allen’s return since he last appeared in 2017’s Justice League might find this line a snarky, earned dig at the DC Cinematic Universe’s set of super-powered fuck-ups. But to the rest of us, it’s deeply ironic: The Flash (out June 16) has become the Justice League franchise’s mess to mop up, a giant hole in the wall that DC Studios has been trying to hide with a painting.
The movie itself, for those willing to wade through the muck and the mire of public record to go see it, is barely the problem. The Flash’s achievements are the kind that make for good in-flight movie fare: It’s familiar, easygoing, and amusing. But to offer the film any kind of praise is an uneasy task, because its star is one of the most controversial Hollywood figures in recent memory. Miller, who spent much of 2022 at the center of several shocking allegations, doesn’t just play one super-speedy Barry Allen. In this movie, they play two separate Barry Allens, who share the screen together for most of The Flash’s 144-minute runtime.
To many of the people keeping up with their behavior over the last year-plus, one Miller is a Miller too many. Between March and August 2022, the actor was arrested for harassment and assault; accused of grooming a teenager; showed up to a neighbor’s house wearing a bulletproof vest and behaving erratically; loaded up their home with openly accessible guns; and received charges for burglary and trespassing. (They later pled guilty to the latter charge.) By mid-August, as The Flash raced toward post-production and a promotional cycle, Miller issued an apologetic public statement about their behavior, stating that they would begin treatment for their mental health.
Miller has remained neither seen nor heard since then, but The Flash received the brunt of the complaints in their absence. Some DC fans hoped that the studio would shelve the film or edit Miller out, replacing them with another actor. Considering the film’s massive budget, visibility, and focus on Miller specifically, those proposals would never come to bear. Thus begat a cavalcade of questions: Would the film’s star participate in press events? Would trailers and posters downplay the actor’s involvement? Would the film’s success allow for Miller to receive minimal consequences for their myriad bad actions?
The answers are, thus far, no; no; and unclear. Which is why it feels ethically difficult to admit that The Flash succeeds almost entirely on the strength of Miller’s performance. While the Oscar-winning, speed force-entering Flash was the infuriatingly corny comic relief in Justice League, here, Miller revamps and recreates the elder and younger Barry Allens. Each is an endearing, charismatic, and, thank goodness, funny superhero in his own right, appealing protagonists for this belated superhero origin story.
The Flash also offers the DC Cinematic Universe—which is on the precipice of a major reboot that will throw both Miller’s and the Flash’s future into even further uncertainty—a chance to explore the multiverse, the increasingly exhausting concept that every movie’s playing with lately. We catch up with the Justice League’s scrappiest member as an awkward late-twentysomething, struggling to balance his superhero obligations (and overactive metabolism’s feeding schedule) with his continued grief over losing his mother. As a child, Barry’s father was wrongfully jailed for the mysterious murder of his mother; it’s the exact kind of trauma that makes for a superhero, as Barry’s good friend Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) knows well.
Unlike Bruce, who chooses to channel his grief through expensive gadgets and an overly muscular, pointy-eared costume, Barry has the ability to more productively run away from his problems. On the eve of his father’s seemingly doomed appeal trial, Barry decides to quick things into high gear and try speeding all the way back to the day his mother died. Bruce warns him that doing this will mess up their present day, but Barry endeavors to just make a small change: one that’s not significant enough to screw up his timeline, while still ensuring that his mother survives.
The good news is that Barry succeeds in saving his parents. The bad news is that, if you’ve ever seen Back to the Future or any number of time-travel movies, you know that Barry has made a huge mistake by saving her. What ensues is Barry’s failed attempt to return to his own present, as his trip back is intercepted by a mysterious villain that clearly takes issue with his disrespect toward the multiverse’s delicate balance. After he’s dropped off at his childhood house, to give his mom the hug he’s waited years for, Barry realizes that he’s landed about 10 years in the past—and his 18-year-old self is heading home to have Mom do his laundry.
To prevent further space-time disruption, Barry is determined to help turn his younger, alternate-timeline self into the Flash, so that they can work together in stabilizing the multiverse. The Flash offers a fun twist on the average hero introduction with this storyline; we watch the two Barrys learn from and play off each other, with the wiser one calmly explaining to the goofier one why, for instance, you need the right clothes to sustain movement at supersonic speeds. (This gives us a delightful sequence, in which the 18-year-old Barry ends up increasingly naked in public—if you don’t have the right clothes, you end up with no clothes at all.) Miller nails the pair’s big bro/little bro dynamic; the actor is convincing as a college freshman, who won’t stop cracking jokes, and they’re likable as the twentysomething showing that goofball the ropes.
Miller is best when playing against themselves, just as The Flash is the best when it allows itself to just indulge in the charms of its lead character(s). Their bickering back-and-forth almost forgives the trope-laden time-travel story, which is self-conscious of its conventionality while refusing to subvert it. Unfortunately, The Flash is also in the business of peddling fan service, as its marketing has aggressively emphasized. While the initial cameos (the return of Affleck’s Batfleck/Irons’ Alfred and a quick visit from another Justice League member) don’t overstay their welcome, once the film fast-forwards through the multiverse, all franchise-milking hell breaks loose.
Yes, franchises exist in part to be milked. But The Flash swerves away from its greatest strength—the Barry bonding—as much as possible, distracting us with recognizable-but-unrelated characters. Superman’s baddie General Zod (Michael Shannon) nonsensically enters the fray, bringing a bounty of alien hunters to destroy Earth and becoming the film’s Big Bad. He’s also the reason that Supergirl, played by Sasha Calle, drops by for an absurdly pointless arc that wastes the actress and the newly introduced character; that Supergirl shows up instead of Superman feels like DC trying to stick it to Henry Cavill, one last time.
Most recognizable is Michael Keaton’s Batman, from Tim Burton’s two Batflicks. He’s the nostalgia play with the most screen time, including in the movie’s teasers, where he appears more than the Flash does. Those were misleading; Keaton’s AARP-member Dark Knight exits retirement to help the boys on their quest to patch up the multiverse and not much else. It’s fun to see him don the suit, fling Batarangs, and return to his iconic Batcave. But the flashes of fun and Keaton's radiant coolness don’t excuse the story’s limited need for him: He’s mostly just the helpful old guy everyone quietly respects. Instead, Keaton’s Batman is here to create excitement for a knowing viewer. Swap in any other classic iteration of a current superhero, and the story would be the same; Spider-Man: No Way Home, this ain’t.
That said, at least Keaton’s Batman is integrated into the story; later classic DC winks and nods are almost comically lazy and pandering. But the dump truck of nostalgia is hardly the worst part of The Flash. That would be its visuals: Not only does this film slather itself in the Zack Snyder palette of grays and grayers—made more obvious against the bright red and yellow of the Flash’s costume—but it also boasts a collection of shockingly ugly CGI. Much of The Flash is ostensibly set in the early 2010s, around when Man of Steel debuted, and its CGI looks like it was cooked up back then too. Fight scenes are so laden with computer-generated faces and figures, they look like pre-rendered cutscenes. The slow-motion effect meant to show off how fast the Flash can run is often at fault, as it forces the film to warp everything around into distended shapes that it isn’t well-equipped to render. One particularly bad scene, in which a gaggle of creepy-looking newborns slowly hurdle down toward the pavement, is shockingly, disgustingly laughable in its garishness. (Imagine a bunch of melting wax dolls transforming into inhuman blobs in mid-air, and you’ll have nailed it.)
Because the movie lays the CGI on thick, Miller often appears as a non-playable character moving through an ugly, overstimulating mélange of grotesquely conceived imagery. Even their face appears to be superimposed upon the Flash’s body when in-costume. The moments when the Flash enters that award-winning Speed Force (or runs wildly in place, in a clear nod to the “Cosmic Treadmill”) only make those practical scenes in which Miller’s two Barry Allens quip with each other, shed tears in memory of their mother, or teach each other about how to be a proper superhero much more enjoyable. But even the speedster can’t move quickly enough to avoid getting stuck in the VFX sludge.
The Flash is likely something that many moviegoers already know if they will go see, whether or not Miller is a factor; such is the nature of superhero franchise films. But it also will undoubtedly be a stand-alone, late entry in a movie franchise on the verge of a reboot, which may make it an easy pass for people wanting to keep up with a storyline. (Director Andy Muschietti maintains futile hope for a sequel.) And, more often than not, it’s a vapidly constructed, bad-looking feature. All of this qualifies The Flash as a lackluster summer movie pick, especially when Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, likely playing next door, handles a similar premise immeasurably better.
Still, watching a charismatic young superhero crack wise while processing his trauma is often undeniable, and Miller alone is responsible for that pleasure. Yet having to reconcile their winning performance with their shameful behavior makes The Flash the summer’s most fraught recommendation, should it even be one. If nothing else, in this difficult dance of judging at once the film and its star, it’s important to remember that no one should judge the viewer.
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