If you’re curious as to why we should give a damn what Kevin Smith thinks of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, it’s worth noting that the director is a long-time comic fan and has been avidly tracking the film’s progress to the screen. Plus, he has worked with and is still close with one of the stars (Ben Affleck), and also has a working relationship with Warner Bros./DC Entertainment.
So, obviously he praised the hell out of the film, right?
Actually, no. In fact, Smith was refreshingly honest and forthright when outlining his many issues with the follow up to Man of Steel while discussing it on his podcast, Hollywood Babble-On.
The movie, I felt like, didn’t really have a heart. It was certainly fucking humorless. There was nothing funny going on in that world whatsoever, but it had lots of spectacle. Like you can’t take that away from [Zack] Snyder. Boy, he knows how to compose a frame and how to setup a shot. Beautiful visual stylist. But you need more than just pictures. You need the characterization and these characters seemed off character, particularly Superman.
There seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding of what those characters are about. It’s almost like Zack Snyder didn’t read a bunch of comics, he read one comic once, and it was Dark Knight Returns, and his favorite part was the last part where Batman and Superman fight. But … you get to do that in that book because you’ve got three books prior to that and 50 years at that point of comic-book history to build on.
It’s worth noting that Smith has since backtracked a little (well, quite a lot actually) when reassessing the movie on his latest installment of Fatman on Batman.
What do you guys think, though? Have the critics – and Mr. Smith here – been too harsh on Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, or does it deserve the hate?