When I headed off to my screening of The Flash, my hopes were not incredibly high. Between the movie being in development hell for years, Ezra Miller’s bizarre crime spree in the midst of filming, and DC’s track record of delivering no small number of subpar movies, I figured The Flash would be two and a half hours of non-stop, hard-to-watch insanity.
But, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong. Kind of.
Without getting into spoilers, I felt the performances were decent to great; the story, while a bit complicated and convoluted at times, showcased the best points of the Flashpoint storyline; and it delivered an emotional ending that outpaced most of the DC films that came before it. However, the only aspect of the movie that was a total, undeniable letdown was the visual effects that littered the entirety of the film. While there has been some horrible CGI in other DC films (looking at you Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice), nothing could have prepared me for what I was going to get from a movie that cost $200 million to make.
Like an onion, The Flash‘s terrible CGI has layers to it
One of the most talked about scenes with the worst CGI comes at the very beginning of the film. While getting breakfast, Barry Allen is called upon by Bruce Wayne to save a crumbling hospital in Gotham City. When saving the patients, several babies fall from the sky in a nightmarish sequence where they look like the first rendition of the Twilight baby.
Obviously, they couldn’t toss real babies from a skyscraper, but with the millions of dollars sunk into the movie since 2021, they could’ve done a bit better than making it rain Renesmee clones.
One reason why the film’s VFX ended up as bad as it was could be because of its chaotic production. According to We Got This Covered, the film’s original shoot took place in 2021 in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, but the story was obviously altered post-filming as can be seen through the events of the movie. Also, there were a ton of cameos toward the end of the film from characters whose likeness’ negotiations may have come down to the wire and forced the studio into an incredibly tight deadline where they had to make them look as good as they can.
Another reason could be that Weta Digital, the VFX company that worked on Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, has now reportedly turned its sole attention to James Cameron’s Avatar films, so Warner Bros. had to turn to less experienced VFX artists to finish The Flash. And while it’s awesome to give up-and-coming artists their shot in the big league, the results here were simply embarrassing.
It’s hard to deny that the VFX in The Flash can come off as ghoulish at times, but apparently it was supposed to be like that (???)—at least according to the film’s director Andy Muschietti. When asked about the raining baby sequence by io9, Muschietti explained, “The idea, of course, is … we are in the perspective of the Flash. Everything is distorted in terms of lights and textures. We enter this ‘waterworld’ which is basically being in Barry’s POV. It was part of the design so if it looks a little weird to you that was intended.”
Listen, I’m not a VFX artist and I haven’t directed any big-budget films, but that seems like a pretty crappy answer. It’s no secret that visual artists are overworked, but I would think Warner Bros. could shell out a few more coins to not give me haunting baby nightmares for the next few months.
(featured image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
