A long and anticipated wait is over—Ezra Miller as Barry Allen, also known as “The Flash”! After many halts in production and Miller’s erratic behavior, The Flash is finally here. But from my perspective, this long-awaited experience was mediocre at best.

The Flash provides little backstory, it jumps right to the main story, and its approach to the writing is poor. In fact, I found very few invigorating moments in this film. I continually asked myself just what direction this film is going to take. The DC universe has many superhero alumni. One is Michael Keaton returning in a role as Bruce Wayne as “Batman!” And there are other positives and surprises in the DC universe. The Flash is not one of them. It is fatally flawed.

In his role as Barry Allen and “The Flash!”, Miller of course has a super power that allows him to move from place to place in the blink of an eye. But Barry is a sensitive individual, and he has a dark past that he wishes he could turn around. A family tragedy puts him in a place where his chosen course is to go back in time to change the future and save his mom. The problem is that the world he enters does not have any heroes. Without the assistance of heroes, Barry may not be able to accomplish his self-assigned mission. Despite Ben Affleck also coming back as Bruce Wayne and “Batman”, Barry’s resources and teammates are limited.

As Barry continues to embark on his mission, Bruce Wayne and Batman do play a role in helping The Flash. At times it almost seemed like there is more of Batman than The Flash. I often felt like I wasn’t in the world of The Flash. I was in a different universe of previous superheroes.

It is no doubt a challenge to craft a strong storyline, and The Flash is proof of that. Instead of a strong storyline it has lots of random moments of poorly written adventures. So although I had faith in Ezra Miller’s performance and my excitement was high for this film, this one didn’t come close to meeting my expectations.

One of the glaring flaws of The Flash was the shifting of timelines. It was simply an utter mess. Barry’s time travel grasped my attention visually, but it kept feeling like being thrown into universes of clouds with no solutions. My view is that most of the cinema superhero universe seems to be in the clouds, and much of the blame may be on the studios rushing their projects. The Flash was delayed then rushed, and while the rushing speed of Barry and The Flash brought some thunderbolts of joy, the rest of the movie is a blur.

I’m trying to find something positive to say about The Flash, and it did have some surreal surprises, but most of the film is a mess. Again, I had faith in Miller, and I was hopeful that this would be a great experience. But it kept failing where there could have been brilliance. In fact, I would say that a better title for this film would have been The Flash and His Lame Adventures. Just two out of four stars for The Flash.