The Flash

Directed by Andy Muschietti, The Flash follows Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen as he attempts to undo his mother’s (Maribel Verdú’s Nora) murder in the past and, in the process, winds up changing the present in various ways. Filmmaker Muschietti, working from Christina Hodson’s screenplay, admittedly does a nice job of initially luring the viewer into the increasingly underwhelming proceedings, as The Flash kicks off with a briskly-paced and fun opening stretch that contains a number of thoroughly entertaining sequences – including (and especially) a terrific, agreeably ludicrous interlude wherein Miller’s superhero must save several babies from a collapsing building. And while the movie’s time-travel-heavy midsection does hold some promise, with the compelling atmosphere heightened by Miller’s charming performance and the welcome return of Michael Keaton as Batman, The Flash, perhaps inevitably, progresses into a loud, CGI-heavy final third that grows more and more exhausting (and interminable) and ensures that the whole thing peters out to a shocking degree – which does, in the end, cement the picture’s place as just another padded-out and entirely ill-conceived comic-book adaptation.

*1/2 out of ****