Warning: This post will contain very strong language, discussion of Ezra Miller’s various crimes, spoilers for the film when I eventually talk about it, and in general, be extremely negative the entire time. I’m about to go scorched Earth on this film, because it’s no less than what this movie, and the people who made it, deserve. No fucks will be given for the duration of this post. You have been warned:
The Crimes of Ezra Miller
To start things off, David Zaslav, Andy Muschietti, James Gunn, and anybody else who took Warner Brothers’ money to call this one of the best superhero movies of all time (*Cough* Tom Cruise *Cough*), while ignoring and covering up the crimes of Ezra Miller, can well and truly go fuck themselves. These craven motherfuckers at Warner Brothers looked at the almost $2 billion dollars Disney and Sony made from “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” and said, ‘Can we have one of those too?’
They had a pretty good vehicle to do it with, too. Warner Brothers had long been working to make a Flash movie come out of their DC Universe, and of course they were using the character’s most famous story, Flashpoint. Now, we’ll put aside the fact that Flashpoint is not an introductory story for you to make with the character, as it’s more of a series/season finale. It’s a story that plays with what we know of the character and universe.
As originally conceived, Flashpoint was the bridge between the old continuity of comics, and the new era known as “The New 52.” Meanwhile, we’ve known this Ezra Miller Flash since 2016, but that’s mostly from a couple supporting performances and cameos in shitty movies. Remember when Flash cameoed in the 2016 “Suicide Squad?” I sure didn’t until I looked it up on IMDB!
But the use of this particular story as the Flash’s solo movie is the least of this film’s problems. Because, after they spent 2021 filming this film, and juicing it up with more cameos and crossovers when Warner Brothers salivated over having their own ‘No Way Home,’ Ezra Miller started going on a bit of a crime spree. Actually, the trouble started earlier.
In March of 2020, instead of isolating themself like the rest of the world was starting to do, Miller had not one, but two violent altercations with fans. The first was dismissed as a drunken altercation, and was not filmed. The second one was. And here it is:
If you think the video is weird, and are still not convinced by it, here’s what Miller’s representative had to say about the incident in 2022 to Vanity Fair, in a story I’m going to be quoting a lot:
Miller’s rep says the actor was baited by “a group of teens” about their mixed martial arts skills. She claims the choking was not a choking but “a spontaneous reaction” during which the actor “went at her collarbone.”
Jesus fucking Christ man, in two years you’d think the people paid to do PR for you would be able to come up with some bullshit excuse or something. You know, like Fox News has to do all the time in defending Republicans. But nope, it was a spontaneous reaction to a dig about their MMA skills. Who of us hasn’t went for the collarbone of somebody, because of that?
No charges were ever pressed.
Then came the reign of terror in Hawaii. On March 28th of 2022, Miller was arrested after a verbal spat with patrons at a karaoke bar turned into a physical altercation. They were charged with disorderly conduct and harassment. Hours after Miller was released, Miller barged into a couple’s bedroom and threatened them. The couple soon filed for a restraining order, and then dropped it with no public explanation. Quoting from Vanity Fair:
A source close to that couple refused to comment, but warned VF,“Don’t poke a hornets nest because one stung a few people.”
On April 19th, Miller was again arrested, this time for assault in throwing a chair at a woman. Hours afterwards, Miller pleaded no contest to the karaoke incident, and was fined a mere $500 for disorderly conduct. As part of a plea deal, charges were dropped. No charges from any of the other incidents were ever pressed.
But wait, it somehow gets worse. Once again, from the Vanity Fair piece:
According to three people in Miller’s circle, the polycule is less a democratic society than an ever shifting “court harem” of mostly young women. A friend of the actor says, “An openly polyamorous lifestyle—that’s not inherently wrong to me.” But Miller’s situation, in their opinion, “is actually a patriarchal dictatorship where Ezra controls all the sex as the man, and plays the women against each other, screams at them, belittles them in front of the others.”
One of the women in Miller’s circle was Tokata Iron Eyes, whom Miller met in 2016 during a protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Iron Eyes was 12 when they met Miller, who at the time was 23. Miller kept them close by, and even flew them onto the set of movies Miller was filming. By 2021, Iron Eyes had dropped out of school to follow Miller, and was even in Hawaii during the aforementioned reign of terror. From Vanity Fair:
In Hawaii, the actor repeatedly claimed to be acting as Iron Eyes’s adopted guardian, though the teen is alleged to have gone without a phone, money, underwear, socks, or even shelter.
In June of 2022, Iron Eyes’ parents had a temporary order of protection filed against Miller, accusing Miller of manipulation and grooming of their daughter. Iron Eyes herself has professed to denying these allegations. Law enforcement were initially unable to locate Miller to serve the order, which Miller openly mocked them for on social media. The parents sought a more permanent order, but it was dismissed. They eventually withdrew their request for custody of the now adult-aged Iron Eyes.
And that’s not even all the incidents and allegations, as there’s also grooming allegations involving Miller’s relationship with a 12-year old girl in Massachusetts. There’s also a series of incidents in Vermont, which are all just exhausting to process.
Needless to say, none of Miller’s explanations or excuses of mental health issues, or having a hard time because his parents were getting a divorce, mean jack fucking shit. This is a pattern of behavior by narcissistic and potentially dangerous psychopath. It’s the type of story you should be aghast at while watching a documentary series of on Netflix.
The problem is, those types of documentaries are usually only made of there’s consequences at the end, and so far there hasn’t been any. Nobody has pressed charges long enough for anything to happen, and the various local governments aren’t going to do anything unless somebody does something, or they have unignorable proof.
And if we’re being honest, the fact that the justice system isn’t doing shit shouldn’t surprise anybody that pays attention to it at all. These systems’ natural inclination is to not do something, so if somebody is not going to do something, guess what, they’re not going to fucking do anything. You can’t get judged in a court of law, if you never go to court.
But we’re supposedly in the Information Age where the court of public opinion judges all. At least according to some, it’s pretty easy to get cancelled. Why hasn’t Ezra Miller been cancelled? Well, for one, cancelling doesn’t exist. It’s a made-up concept. Secondly, Miller is not that big of a star; most people just don’t know or care.
Thirdly, in the case of Iron Eyes, the unspoken reason why a lot of people don’t care, is because she’s Native American. We don’t care about indigenous people in this country. They have no voice in the press. They have no voice in the justice system. They have very little economic standing or power, as native reservations tend to be some of the most poverty-stricken in all of America. They also have some of the highest rates of unreported crimes, such as rape and sexual abuse/assault.
Fourthly, it’s not like there’s been one damning headline, it’s more of a series of incidents that you have to keep up with. It’s not a lot of obvious videos or pictures, it’s a lot of police reports, allegations, etc. You kind of have to be chronically online, as they say, to know all of this, and care. That doesn’t apply to a lot of people. And because that doesn’t apply to a lot of people, it makes the last point all the easier.
The Answer To All of Your Questions is Money
Fifthly, Miller did most of this after the filming of “The Flash” completed. Warner Brothers already spent $200 million making this movie. This isn’t like the very unique and famous situation where Ridley Scott re-filmed all of Kevin Spacey’s scenes in “All the Money In the World” with Christopher Plummer in the role. That character was not in that much of the film, so it was easy for Ridley to redo the few scenes. He was also experienced enough to do it all in a very short time span, for fairly cheap. In that specific equation, the math made sense.
For “The Flash,” you would literally have to re-film most of the movie. Ezra Miller is in practically every scene. More than that, they plays multiple characters. You would have to rebuild the sets. Get all the actors back. The last time a movie was re-filmed that extensively, it was with “Solo,” which became one of the most expensive movies of all time when all was said and done. The math never made sense, and that film was never able to turn a profit.
But last year, while enacting some extreme cost-cutting measures that included removing content from their streaming services, and taking tax write-downs for them, Warner Brothers canned an entire “Batgirl” movie. It had Michael Keaton in it as Batman. It had Brendan Fraser as the villain. It was directed by the guys who did ‘Bad Boys 4.’ It was already filmed. But Warner Brothers permanently shelved it to write it off on their taxes, which they thought would be better financially, than actually releasing the film.
They might have been able to do the same too “The Flash,” but once again they saw the almost $2 billion dollars ‘No Way Home’ made, and thought this film could be as big a hit for them. And so, they swept all of Ezra Miller’s crimes under a rug.
They couldn’t replace Ezra Miller, so they tried to make everybody forget about Miller instead. Warner Brothers hid Miller away from the public, didn’t let Miller do any press, they supposedly got treatment for Miller’s mental health issues, and they pretended like nothing ever happened.
Not only did Warner Brothers pretend nothing ever happened, but to goose the box office and reception for this film, they put out there to anybody that would listen that this was not only the best DC film ever, which isn’t saying much because most of DC’s films have been heavily-panned, but it was one of the best superhero films, period.
They got Tom Cruise to say it. They got the new head of DC Films, James Gunn, to say it. They showed the film in its entirety to press and industry in April, and had a lot of them say it. They publicly hired the director of this film, Andy Muschietti, to their next Batman movie.
And it apparently wasn’t enough to just sweep Ezra Miller under a rug and ignore them, they had to pave the way when this film was a sure success they could bring Miller back. So Warner Brothers even started going out of their way to say how much they loved Ezra Miller, and he was their Flash moving forward, because of how incredibly Miller did in this movie. Andy Muschietti came out in public support of Ezra Miller.
God fucking forbid we scare audiences away from making us that $2 billion dollars. You like Ezra Miller? They’re here to stay! You don’t like Ezra Miller? Never heard of them! Look, here’s Michael Keaton as Batman! Remember him from your childhood?!? He says his famous line in the trailer!
It’s talking out the both sides of their mouth, cynical Hollywood bullshit, and capitalism writ large, run amok. Why make the moral choice, when there’s money to be made? And it’s honestly fucking depressing how many industry people, critics, audience members, etc., have fallen for it all, hook, line, and sinker.
Now, you might be expecting for me to say and this is all why I’m not seeing or supporting this film in any way, because that was fully my intention when I wrote my summer movie preview in April:
From all the reporting I’ve seen, Ezra Miller can well and truly go fuck themselves, and James Gunn and Warner Brothers are only hyping up the film because it’s their “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” in that it has a bunch of cameos, which should incentivize a higher turnout for this film. Second chances should be earned, not given away because of the potential costs or profits involved.
But you know what’s better than a boycott? Reveling in their ultimate demise.
Karma′s Gonna Track You Down, Step by Step, Town to Town
As recently as a few weeks ago, this film was tracking for an estimated opening weekend of $120-$140 million dollars. Now, that would be significantly less that several DC films have opened to in the past, including “Batman V. Superman,” which peaked for DC with a $166 million dollar opening weekend.
But it would be in line with what movies have been doing in this post-pandemic era, where ‘Guardians 3’ and ‘Across the Spiderverse’ have opened to around $120 million, and held pretty well based on positive word of mouth. I don’t think anybody quite expected what this film made, instead.
That’s right, this film flat-out BOMBED. It didn’t make ‘No Way Home’ money, it made several million dollars less than “Black Adam,” a film that was a public embarrassment when it bombed last year. It made less than “Green Lantern” did when you adjust for inflation, which is infamously one of the biggest bombs in box office history.
All-told, it looks like this movie might earn back… a quarter of its budget, with advertising included? Half, if this movie doesn’t drop like a boulder in its second weekend, which it might, because while critical word of has been better than expected, a lot of the audience metrics have been abysmal. This film earned a “B” Cinemascore, which ties it for worst received film in DCEU history, along with “Batman V. Superman.”
Anybody that says this film’s reception has been anything but an unmitigated disaster so far, is lying to you. It won’t save their jobs either. This is the type of result where it wouldn’t surprise me if David Zaslav pushed the eject button and cleaned house tomorrow.
If you told me that ‘Aquaman 2’ was going straight to Max, or being canned as another tax write-off, that wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Warner Brothers needs to wipe its hands of these movies as soon and definitively as possible, before they try rebooting it with James Gunn in 2025 or 2026.
This isn’t the type of bomb you can blame on genre fatigue, or weak box office, which several idiots have already been out in force saying, from what I’ve seen. No, this is a flat-out rejection by audiences. Was it Ezra Miller’s crimes? Lack of interest in the DCEU? Bad word of mouth? In this case, the answer is probably all the above, and more.
Warner Brothers, and those that worked on this film and carried water for it, sold their souls, creative reputations, and integrity on the chance that this film would make them a pile of money that would make people forget about every bad decision that led them to this point. They could bury all the crimes Ezra had committed in the back of their minds, because Miller was about to be their cash cow. Instead, they all now have to live with themselves, and this shit fucking movie they made.
The Shit Fucking Movie
And what a shit fucking movie this is. Is it the best superhero film ever made, and every other piece of hyperbole that Warner Brothers set the bar impossibly high with? Motherfucker, it isn’t even close to being the best superhero film of the last two weeks!
Now granted, any film would look bad in comparison to ‘Across the Spiderverse,’ but this film looks especially bad, since it tries everything that film did, but significantly worse. ‘Spiderverse’ may have only been half of a movie, according to its harshest critics, but that film has more artistry and heart in any given second than this manages for an entire film.
Here, the “fan service” and universes colliding doesn’t feel thought-out or cared for, it feels like cynical sludge being shoved down your throat and jammed into your eyeballs. I absolutely love Nicolas Cage, and I should be losing my mind when he shows up as Superman here!
Instead, the dead-eyed, nightmare-fueled look of that character’s face, along with the propped-up corpses of Christopher Reeve and several other actors/characters that appear during that sequence, will haunt my nightmares. These plastic zombies stare straight into your soul, and when you stare back, you cannot tell me there’s a God.
This film was delayed from last summer so they could work on the special effects. Because of the pandemic, there was a backlog of TV shows and movies that needed CGI, and these effects studios could basically pick what they wanted to work on, and when. They were going to get to this film later, so Warner Brothers was forced to delay it.
Well, did they eventually get Wish to do the effects? Did they just let some AI program do the effects? I refuse to believe whoever created these character models has ever seen what an actual human being looks like before. I’ve seen people comparing it to “The Polar Express,” or how motion-capture animation looks in general, but I absolutely think this looks worse.
This week there was a debate if Teddy Sears was in this film playing a golden-age version of The Flash, which is briefly seen in this film. Sears says he did no such filming for the film, while others say Warner Brothers used his likeness without Sears’ consent.
People, I knew to look specifically for the moment going into the film, and seeing it on the big screen, I can tell you it’s definitely not Teddy Sears. It looks to me like an AI-generated character. It’s just generic human for generic Golden-Age Flash.
This might be in fact be the first movie made by Chat GPT. That’s how completely and utterly soulless this film looks and feels.
Remember that scene that everybody makes fun of in “American Sniper,” where it’s clear the baby Bradley Cooper is holding is very fake? It’s like that, but somehow even more unsettling. The film isn’t even trying to hide it. You’re staring right at the faces of these abominations the entire time they’re on screen.
I thought the people on Twitter who were talking about Ezra Miller putting a baby in the microwave in this film, were joking, or it was satire. But no, there’s an entire sequence where Ezra Miller is trying to save a bunch of babies in this film, and he absolutely puts one of them in the microwave.
Director Andy Muschietti has already come out in defense of the CGI, as being a stylistic choice. It’s supposed to look like shit… on purpose. OK, I can buy it as being poor execution of an idea when The Flash is time-traveling, and you see Nicolas Cage as Superman.
But how does this Flash-vision apply to the beginning of the film with the babies, but not the adult woman and dog he’s also trying to save in the scene? Alas, it’s just one of the many infuriating questions this film refuses to answer.
Why would you sell this movie on bringing back Michael Keaton as Batman, just to kill him off not once, but twice in this film! Why would you introduce Sasha Calle as Supergirl, when she gets killed pretty much immediately, after being given nothing to do?
Why go through the trouble of bringing back George Clooney as Bruce Wayne at the end, when you have no intention on following through with that, whatsoever? Why would you make Ezra Miller’s portrayal of The Flash so obnoxious, and then think it’s ok, because you point out how obnoxious he is?
Why would you also use the same twist in your movie that “Lightyear” literally had last summer? If I had a nickel for every time a character had to confront a future villain version of himself that was formerly a past version of their self that then became evil, I would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice, right?
Touching Grass Is Not Enough, I Need to Fight God
After watching this film, I turned to all of the film podcasts I listen to that review movies on a weekly basis, and I honestly felt like I was being gaslit. It’s usually OK to like a movie, and while the last few years have permanently scrambled everybody’s brain, I don’t understand how anybody could possible put up with the shit this film dishes out, and expects you to slop up like the IP-hungry pigs they think we are.
We are better than this. Everybody has their own line in the sand, this is mine. This film is pure trash. It’s everything wrong with blockbusters and Hollywood today, and we need to treat it as such, else they think our standards are low enough to accept more like it. Like I said, this film, and everybody involved in making it, can go fuck themselves.
.5/5 Stars
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Currently Ranked:
#96/#103 in “Nicolas Cage, Ranked”
#15/#15 in “The DCEU, Ranked”
#67/#67 in “Batman, Ranked”