Knee-jerk review: "The Flash"

1. There's a really good movie buried away somewhere in here.  But you can tell it's been in development for a long time, going through way too many writers and directors.  It's got an undercooked, patchwork feel.
2. Michael Keaton is great, of course.
3. The first act baby sequence is clearly meant to be a "wow!" set piece, but just seemed weird to us.  Although we love the idea that the Flash needs to consume a ridiculous amount of calories to do what he does.
4. Yes, the Superman Man of Steel movie from 2013 was a huge hit, but it's not exactly a beloved classic outside of inexplicably rabid Zack Snyder fandom.  Which means we weren't on board with connecting this movie to the Man of Steel plot.  We didn't love sitting through a big superhero fight with General Zod in 2013, so we weren't thrilled to have to now watch another one in 2023.
5. Ezra Miller holds his own.  He's got an appropriately quirky nerd vibe that works fine.  We weren't distracted by his off-camera legal and health issues.
6. The idea of interacting with another version of yourself is fascinating.  The movie has some fun with that notion, especially in the way that loss can totally change your outlook and personality, but it doesn't really go far enough.
7. The humor works.  We wanted more.
8. The problem is the ending.  What a mess.  We suspect this is what's totally killed the movie's word of mouth box office prospects.  We can't imagine anyone loving it.  It's the usual CGI nonsense, of course, all lasers and energy bolts and "other dimension" monsters, but it was way more confusing to us than most confusing superhero endings.  We didn't know what was going on.  Watching it was totally exhausting.
9. There's a left-field Nicolas Cage element that is so inside baseball we can't believe the filmmakers included it.  They spent 2 to 3 minutes on a gag that 10% of the audience probably got.  Misplaced priorities.
10. All that said, there was something unusually dark about the Kobayashi Maru notion that some timelines can't be saved no matter how many different ways you play it.  We liked that.  Sometimes you can't win.
11. We didn't know the Flash could "phase" through a wall.
12. Sasha Calle's Supergirl is fantastic, a brooding and surly Wolverine-style reluctant hero, but she's utterly wasted.  How the movie deals with her and Keaton at the end was extremely frustrating.  Almost cast aside like afterthoughts.  Why introduce them if they're really not going to add anything? 
13. It's really too bad we'll never see Calle as Supergirl again.
14. Once you get past the ridiculous sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing CGI ending, there's a very poignant coda moment with the Flash and his mom.  That's the angle the movie probably should have mined more.  Sometimes the stakes don't have to involve putting the entire planet in comic book jeopardy.
15. Ben Affleck looked so bored.  To us, he'll always be the director of the slam-bang thrilled Argo.
16. Very cool explanation of multiverses and time travel courtesy Bruce Wayne's bowl of pasta. 
17. The post-credits tag scene - one that we waited through endless crew names to watch - was a complete letdown, like one final sour cherry on the last 45 minutes of the movie.  For some reason we get five minutes of the Flash dragging a drunk Aquaman out of a bar. Aquaman then falls facefirst into a puddle, which we guess was supposed to be funny? 
18. As smart and winning as so much of the movie was, some of the filmmakers' choices seemed just so completely wrongheaded.

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