***½
Barry, those scars we have make us who we are. We’re not meant to go back and fix them. And there’s nothing broken with you that needs to be fixed. Take it from an old guy who’s made plenty of mistakes.

There are three things I wanted to talk about: the tone of the film, Ezra Miller’s performance within it, and the film overall. This is a comic book movie from DC and Warner Bros. The Flash has super speed and is a member of the Justice League, a team that includes the more famous Batman, Superman and Wonderwoman.

I went into this movie with very low expectations. This was a combination of general attitudes about the film, supposedly poor CGI clips, and the controversy surrounding Ezra Miller. I did not expect the film to be funny. In particular when it started, there was criticism of a baby being in a microwave, and when that microwave dinged in the first scene, I thought that was a harbinger of terrible comedy to come. However, it was less offensive than I expected. There was logic for behind the microwave baby – in the microwave it had protection from an oxygen tube that the Flash had to light on fire. So that was fine, the ding just wasn’t amusing. Still I would say that the movie was generally funny. I had six or seven big laughs, which is pretty good for a superhero movie. That comedy was important, because this is probably one of the darker DCEU movies. It’s a movie that looks for Deadpool and lands in Korean revenge territory (think Oldboy). 

Initially, I was of the opinion that DC should have replaced Ezra Miller. Having seen the film I know realize how this would have been prohibitively expensive. Miller is not just in almost every scene; two of him are in most scenes. Even with justifiable dislike for the individual I thought he did a great job (twice). It might help that one version of him is as annoying as your average Sandra Bullock character.

In summary, the film has an unlikable main actor, a depressing story, plot holes and its saving grace, Michael Keaton, was actually not transcendent. Somehow it managed to be enjoyable. And, I do not say this lately, actually has a surprise at the end, which I won’t share because it would spoil something. I did not expect this to be a movie that would be good enough to need spoiler alerts. Kudos to Director Andy Muschietti.