Andy Muschietti’s The Flash sped into theaters burdened with immense expectations, years of development turbulence, and the heavy responsibility of supposedly resetting the DC Extended Universe. Promising a multiverse-spanning adventure that would unite different eras of DC’s cinematic history, the film was touted as a potential game-changer, one that could finally streamline convoluted narratives and pave the way for James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe. However, despite the hype and a few genuinely electrifying moments, The Flash largely stumbled, garnering a mixed critical reception and underwhelming box office returns. Beyond its controversial visual effects and the off-screen issues surrounding its star, the film fundamentally faltered by committing a few cardinal moviemaking sins.
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The Flash‘s most significant issues are deep-seated structural problems that actively undermine the audience’s engagement and the film’s own narrative. It’s a film that, in its attempt to celebrate DC’s legacy and offer a fresh start, ironically ended up muddying the waters further and leaving fans with more questions and frustrations than satisfying resolutions. As a result, The Flash often felt careless, prioritizing fleeting spectacle over substantive storytelling, and its major flaws highlight a misunderstanding of what makes multiverse stories compelling and what audiences truly seek from these epic crossover events.
1) The Flash Doesn’t Know Which Universe It’s In
One of the most bewildering aspects of The Flash is its fundamental ambiguity regarding the very universe in which its central conflict unfolds. The premise sees Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) travel back in time to prevent his mother’s murder, an action that alters events within his own existing universe’s history. When he arrives in this altered past, he indeed finds that General Zod (Michael Shannon) is initiating his invasion of Earth, an event directly tied to the history of Barry’s own DCEU. This initially suggests he has created a splinter timeline from his original reality. However, this altered past is also inexplicably a world where the Batman is not Ben Affleck’s grizzled veteran but Michael Keaton’s iconic caped crusader from Tim Burton’s films, a character established in a completely separate cinematic continuity.
The Flash never adequately explains this colossal discrepancy. Is Barry in an altered version of his own past where, for some unstated reason connected to his time-meddling, a different Batman now exists? Or has his interference somehow thrown him into an entirely different, pre-existing universe that just happens to be experiencing a Zod invasion synchronized with his original timeline’s history? The script offers no clear rules or rationale for how tampering with his personal history results in cherry-picking elements from other distinct DC film universes.
The appearance of Keaton’s Batman, while a significant draw, creates a narrative paradox that the film seems uninterested in resolving. This lack of clarity makes the film’s world-building feel arbitrary and confusing, undercutting the stakes because the audience is never quite sure of the nature of the reality Barry is trying to save or fix.
2) Fan Service Trumps Coherent Worldbuilding in The Flash
While celebrating a franchise’s history can be a joyous experience, The Flash often prioritizes fleeting moments of fan service over the crucial task of building a cohesive world for its own story. The film is laden with cameos and visual references to past DC adaptations, most notably during the “Chronobowl” sequence, where Barry witnesses glimpses of various realities. We see Christopher Reeve’s Superman alongside Helen Slater’s Supergirl, Adam West’s Batman, Nicolas Cage’s never-realized Superman, and even a version of the original DC Flash, Jay Garrick. These moments are designed to elicit a quick thrill of recognition from long-time fans, but they contribute little to Barry Allen’s personal journey or the immediate plot at hand.
The issue isn’t the inclusion of fan service itself, but its execution and the cost it incurs on the narrative. These cameos are often presented as disposable dioramas, lacking context or emotional weight within the film’s primary storyline. Instead of enriching the concept of the multiverse, they feel like a checklist of Easter eggs, distracting from the development of the characters and the rules of this specific cinematic reality. The resources, screen time, and narrative focus dedicated to these winks and nods could have been far better utilized to flesh out the altered timeline Barry finds himself in, to explore the consequences of his actions more deeply, or to provide clearer explanations for the multiversal mechanics at play. By consistently choosing momentary nostalgia over sustained worldbuilding, The Flash sacrifices narrative integrity for superficial gratification, leaving its universe feeling underdeveloped and secondary to the parade of past glories.
3) The Flash Teases Stories That Will Never Materialize
Perhaps the most frustrating sin committed by The Flash is its tendency to introduce compelling new characters and set up intriguing future storylines that, due to the impending DCU reboot, audiences will almost certainly never see come to fruition. The most prominent example of this is the introduction of Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El, or Supergirl. Calle delivers a strong performance as a battle-hardened version of the Kryptonian hero, and her dynamic with the two Barrys is one of the film’s highlights.
Supergirl’s arc, her powers, and her unique backstory establish her as a character ripe for further exploration. The film even ends with her survival in the “fixed” timeline Barry creates (before he messes it up again), strongly implying a future role. However, with James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DCU actively working on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which has Milly Alcock in the titular role, it is abundantly clear that Sasha Calle’s specific iteration of Supergirl introduced in The Flash is a narrative dead end.
Similarly, the film’s final cameo features George Clooney reprising his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman, a reveal that throws Barry (and the audience) for a loop, suggesting a bizarre new status quo. But this, too, is a narrative thread leading nowhere in the grand scheme of the rebooted DCU. Investing significant screen time and emotional energy into characters and plot points that are effectively rendered obsolete before they even have a chance to breathe is a disservice to the audience. It makes these elements feel like hollow teases rather than meaningful additions, leaving viewers with a sense of unfulfilled promise and a feeling that their investment in these new aspects of the story was ultimately pointless.
The Flash is currently available on HBO Max.
What sin committed by The Flash did you find the most detrimental to your viewing experience? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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