The Flash
This movie should have been epic. Cameos by: Wonder Woman (the one and only Gal Gadot). Ben Affleck Batman riding a Christian Bale Batcycle. General Zod again. George Reeves Superman. Adam West Batman. Nic Cage Superman. Helen Slater Supergirl. Chris Reeve Superman. Drunk Aquaman. A final act surprise.
Most of all, though, the film featured the return of Michael Keaton Batman in a role much larger than the trailers led one to believe. No cameo here.
It was a complete 1989 nostalgia infusion. The suit. The music. The Joker's laugh bag. Iconic lines repurposed. The Batmobile. The Batplane - taking it so far as a throwback silhouette against the moon. That alone should have carried this movie to massive box office. There is still a great deal of love and appreciation for that particular character.
So what went wrong?
The first and primary failure was the sicko playing Flash. His personal life, the "zir, zhe, zim, it, they" proclamations, other mental health issues, and bizarre behaviors turned people away from projects the actor was involved in and cast a pall over this film that could not be overcome. The superhero-viewing public was really not invested in the character to begin with and invested even less so in the actor.
Even beyond the personal aversion, Ezra Miller's performance was an annoyingly, gratingly bad disappointment which was multiplied because in this multiverse-spinning tale there were typically two of him (zim, zey, zho, dese) on screen any time one was there. One was bad enough. Two? Failure overload. I don't know who made the casting decision initially, but Miller was a bad choice from the jump. Completely wrong for the part. I think the director and Miller thought his almost-autistic, ridiculous quirkiness was endearing. Well, they were wrong. May have ruined the character for DC film eternity (if there even is such a thing at this point).
Failure 2? CGI. Marvel's is so much better. Early in this film there's a scene where Flash rearranges a bunch of falling objects (including a plethora of babies even more fake than the doll in American Sniper). It was reminiscent to me of a scene in X-Men where Quicksilver (Evan Peters) rearranges a kitchen to evade gun-toting security guards. Comparing the two clearly shows the superiority of Marvel - which as a DC guy makes me sad. An even bigger problem is the director (whoever it was) was so enamored of the falling-baby scene that it was briefly repurposed for the end credits.
Failure 3? A disjointed, reality-hopping storyline that wanted to think it was tying everything together but at the end, really didn't.
Failure 4? No Superman, but a poorly cast super woman, which really served no purpose.
Honestly? If they'd named this movie "Batman Rises" and made Flash a secondary character (and let anyone else, even Nicolas Cage play the Flash role)? If they'd marketed it as the revival of the 1989 Batman? If the trailer had focused on the return of Keaton? And finally, if they'd inflated the role of Keaton's Batman just a little bit more? I think the movie could have been a major box office hit and perhaps given the flagging DC franchise a splash of new life.
It wasn't as bad as Blue Beetle. It wasn't as bad as either ATROCIOUS Aquaman film. It still wasn't as good as some of the worst Marvel films. It was, I have to say, better than the dismal Black Panther probably. On the same level as Ant Man Quantum-maniac perhaps? But in a DC Universe that was already weighted down by monumental failures like Dung Beetle, Aquaman 1 and 2, Dawn of Justice, Justice League, WW 1984, Shazam 2, Birds of Prey, and Black Adam? It was just another anchor dragging the entire franchise to the bottom of the abyss.
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