The Flash has just landed on digital and some of those that skipped it in theaters (judging by the rock-bottom box office, that’s almost everyone) are belatedly checking it out to see what all the fuss is about. As you’d expect, they’re not exactly enthused by its terrible CGI, convoluted plot, and the lingering bad vibes around star Ezra Miller.
But could this modern-day superhero flop secretly be a stealth remake of Richard Kelly’s 2001 indie classic Donnie Darko? Jake Gyllenhaal’s breakthrough movie sees him play the titular character, whose life is thrown into turmoil when, after sleepwalking from his bed, he meets Frank, a mysterious figure in a rabbit costume who tells him the world will end in precisely 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds.
Upon waking Donnie discovers a falling jet engine has landed on his bed, setting off a chain of bizarre events with a bittersweet finale.
So what does any of that have to do with The Flash? Something Awful Forums poster SuperMechaGodzilla is on the case and the evidence is surprisingly compelling:
Look at the narrative from the perspective of Young Barry (who, I’d argue, is the film’s actual protagonist):
Young Barry is just a completely generic college student with no particular interest in anything. (I think they say he’s studying economics?) One day, he’s confronted by a magical time-travelling entity, who forces superpowers upon him and warns that the world will end in, like, a few weeks. The entity drags him along on a surreal esoteric dream-journey where he meets interesting people, and ultimately falls in love with Supergirl. Forced to watch her die over and over again, as the world collapses, Young Barry ultimately decides that his existence is a mistake, and sacrifices himself to erase the doomed timeline.
In other words, it’s Donnie Darko as told from the perspective of Frank the Rabbit – albeit a comedy version it’s also not-too-gradually revealed that Frank’s an idiot with no real clue what he’s doing.
Sure, why not? The Flash is unambiguously a narrative disaster that’s clearly been through so many reshoots and rewrites it barely makes sense, so at least this theory makes the film a teeny bit more interesting.
All indications are that Warner Bros is eager to put the disaster that is The Flash behind them and focus on building hype for Superman: Legacy.
Where that leaves the reportedly terrible Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and the unknown factor that is Blue Beetle is anyone’s guess, though based on how quickly the studio got The Flash out of theaters we expect to see those movies also land on streaming soon after their theatrical releases.