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The oft-delayed and quite beleaguered "The Flash" is finally hitting movie screens, as part of the uneven - a word used generously - DC Extended Universe. When a movie cycles through the rumor mill, attracts unfavorable headlines, and is pushed back for a variety reasons, the first question to ask is always if it was worth the wait while they tried to perfect the film's visuals.

Well...

Director Andy Muschietti (who directed "It" and "It Chapter Two") enters the superhero realm for the first time, and you can tell his sensibilities are with horror films. To give "The Flash" some credit, it sheds a bit more blood than these movies tend to do since it needs to appeal to a wide-ranging PG-13 base. The movie isn't gory, but there are moments where Muschietti gets a bit darker than a comic book movie would without becoming excessive. What gets away from the filmmaker are the visuals, because outside of individual moments, "The Flash" looks distractingly bad: sometimes it resembles a video game, sometimes a cartoon, and other times it looks like a Microsoft 95 computer game. Muschietti's gothic aesthetic from the "It" films was effective, but he struggles in a larger and much more expensive sandbox.

"The Flash" is a yet another multiverse story, as superhero movies are seemingly now mandated to be, and it gets overly knotted in what is a rather simple premise. Ezra Miller reprises their role as Barry Allen, a forensic scientist with an alter ego known as The Flash. He is tormented by the childhood loss of his mother (Maribel Verdú), and the false incarceration of his father (Ron Livingston), who was wrongly arrested for her murder. He wonders if he could use his powers to travel back in time, even though his Justice League pal Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck, who keeps saying 'yes' to these Batman stints even though his performances scream 'no more!') advises him against it. As most stupid twentysomethings are, Barry is defiant and decides to do it anyway.

Time travel isn't easy, and for the plot's sake, everything goes wrong. Barry crosses paths with a younger version of himself and together they travel the multiverse to try and complete Older Barry's mission. It does come as a surprise when they try to seek the counsel of Bruce Wayne that he doesn't look like Ben Affleck, because it's Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne (as shown in the trailer, for spoiler concerns). Amidst the time travel, Michael Shannon's General Zod (from "Man of Steel") is heading to Earth to wreak havoc. Their efforts to enlist Superman in their fight against General Zod also don't go as planned because they cross paths with Kara or Supergirl (Sasha Calle). Exhausted? That's because "The Flash" is exhausting.

The frenetic time travel in "The Flash" is Exhibit A in the case for retiring the multiverse gimmick. While always having been a gimmick, it has worked well in other movies like "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Outside of the comic book sphere, the Oscar-winning Best Picture "Everything Everywhere All at Once" finds a poignant way into multiverse storytelling. "The Flash" wanted in on the newest fad and ends up being the most cynical. The final act of the film - no spoilers! - is some of the most painful, ugly, and awful use of a multiverse plotline.

Miller provided a welcome dose of humor in the dour "Justice League" movie, but their dual performance leading a standalone film can wear thin. Miller gets moments of emotional heft, which are played convincingly, but the younger version of Barry is grating. Everyone else in the movie - including Keaton, in his triumphant return - just feels ornamental to what is entirely Miller's film.

It's not fair to write "The Flash" off as a victim of timing, but in a post-"Spider-Man: No Way Home" world the bar for multiverse superhero films has been set. "The Flash" features a speech from Keaton's Bruce Wayne using spaghetti as metaphor for the different timelines set within the story. It's so apt because "The Flash" hurls lots of spaghetti against the wall, and very few pieces stick.