James Gunn Told Us The Flash Was One of the Greatest Superhero Movies of All Time. That's a Goddamn Lie

James Gunn has not had an easy go of it as the newly installed head of DC Films. The bad buzz magnet attracted some of the worst publicity of its existence when it was announced that a ninety million dollar Batgirl movie featuring the crowd-pleasing return of Michael Keaton as Batman would never be released on account of it being so terrible. 

As I documented in an earlier blog post, Warner Brothers found itself in the surreal position of having to assure an audience excited to see a female-led Batman movie that they didn’t actually want to see the movie because it’s so god-awful. 

That’s the opposite of how it usually works. Studios generally try to convince the public to see their movies, not avoid them. 

That has been the dynamic at play with The Flash. For a good year the film’s future was a big old question mark hanging over DC Films’ attempts to rebrand their organization into something less widely hated. 

Would The Flash ever be released? Or would Ezra Miller’s exceedingly public crime spree lead to it being kept forever in the same vault of shame as Batgirl? 

We recently got a disappointing answer to that question when The Flash was released in a hell storm of bad press and toxic publicity to mixed reviews and dire box-office. 

Gunn’s justification for releasing a two hundred million dollar Ezra Miller vehicle was that the film was SO GOOD that it angrily demanded to be seen in a way Batgirl apparently did not. Gunn didn’t just say that The Flash was a good movie; he said it was one of the best superhero movies ever made. 

I have a lot of respect for Gunn as a writer, a filmmaker and a man. He’s far and away Lloyd Kaufman’s most successful protege, a straight shooter who became one of the biggest filmmakers in the world while holding onto the rebellious spirit of Troma. 

So I stupidly took Gunn at face value when he said that The Flash was nothing short of a masterpiece and that if it was pulled on account of Miller’s behavior the world would be cruelly robbed of a great movie. 

Then I saw The Flash. First I thought, “Hey, this isn’t such a great film that the world needs to see it. It’s not one of the best superhero movies ever made.” 

Though it has Michael Keaton playing Batman it was a world away from Batman Returns in terms of quality, integrity and personality. 

The Flash wasn’t even a particularly good movie. I can understand how people might respond to the emotional aspects of Barry Allen/The Flash being willing to destroy the world in exchange for his mother not being dead.  

I am a softie. I didn’t just cry at the end of Across the Spiderverse; I cried at the beginning, middle AND end. I also recently wept at the end of Fast 7 and Fast 9 so I am not averse to  crying at movies but I felt little during The Flash. 

Also, there was nothing about Miller’s performance that made me forget about the real-life super-villain’s offscreen shenanigans. 

I never thought I’d write these words but a movie studio’s publicity machine has lied to me about the quality, relevance and importance of one of its films. 

James Gunn, a man with a distinct investment in the success of The Flash, was perhaps overly rosy in his assessment of the film’s worth. Hollywood lied to me! I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it. 

I still respect Gunn but he’s a powerful man now and with great power comes great responsibility to his corporate bosses. That seems like the catalyst for Gunn’s praise for The Flash rather than personal enthusiasm. 

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