Kevin Smith has waded into the debate over the much-maligned comic-book movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, arguing that Zack Snyder’s film fundamentally misunderstands both superheroes.
Smith, a long-term friend of the film’s star Ben Affleck, and a comic-book aficionado, has just been announced as a guest director for the TV series The Flash, which is from the same Warner Bros/DC stable as Batman v Superman. But he pulled no punches while discussing Snyder’s film on the latest episode of his Hollywood Babble-On podcast.
“[I felt like] the movie … didn’t really have a heart,” opined Smith. “It was certainly fucking humourless, there was nothing funny going on in that world whatsoever.”
He added: “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 favourite 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.”
Smith did offer praise for Affleck as “the best cinematic presentation of Batman fighting you’ve ever seen in a movie”, but said Snyder’s version of the caped crusader was not one he recognised. “Batman is never like, ‘If there’s a 1% chance shit can go wrong, let’s fucking stab people,’” he added.
Smith described Snyder as a “beautiful visual stylist”, but said the film suffered in other areas: “You need more than just the pictures, you need characterisation, and these characters seemed off, especially Superman.”
Batman v Superman earned a huge $420m during its first weekend at the global box office, despite being scorned by critics. Variety reports Snyder’s film, which aims to set up a slate of 10 interconnected superhero films based on Warner’s rights to the DC Comics back catalogue, pulled in another $46m on Monday. It’s earnings are now expected to hit $500m within days: they currently stand at $468m, though some experts are predicting a slowdown in the film’s second weekend, as poor reviews and possible bad word of mouth hit home.
