There have been many debates about Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, amongst fans and filmmakers alike. One of those filmmakers, Kevin Smith, ended up having a lot to say about the film and in various forms.
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On a recent interview with the Rizzuto Show, the topic of his multiple viewings of the movie was broached. To start with, though, he clarified his original review was positive, despite the pointing out of some of the film’s flaws.
“I do a show called Hollywood Babble-on every week, where all we do is talk about entertainment, and we make jokes too so we’re like “ooh, these are great pull quotes”, particularly in the case of Batman V Superman, which I liked, but I read all over the internet about how much I hated it. Kevin Smith hates Batman V Superman.”
After the interviewer brought up his second viewing, Smith had this to say.
‘Isn’t that weird that you know like, that I even saw it, let alone how I felt about it twice? And that shows you like that we live in a click bait world where somebody is like look, it counts as news. Why? Because one guy who makes movies saw another movie?”
We’ll get to that in a minute, but first, let us get to his reasoning for going with Jayson Mewes to the second viewing, because it has a lot to do with his more positive outlook on the film.
“the dude’s never read a bad comic book. That’s why I liked going to see Batman V Superman with him because he wasn’t looking at it like “Oh, they could’ve done this, or why didn’t they do this. He didn’t pick it apart, he was like “we got to see parademons dude, in a movie”, and I was like yeah you’re right, sometimes just seeing parademons in a movie is enough. “
“Then I got fried on the internet for changing my opinion, saying like “he’s a lackey that belongs to Warner Bros! They got to him!” There was one tweet that made me laugh that was like “Did they get you? Blink if you’re hurt.” But it was like can’t I just change my opinion? Like I saw the movie twice, and the first time I saw it, like here, I didn’t really change my opinion. I liked it both times, but one thing I said about the first viewing was like “I didn’t see where the heart was. It didn’t seem to have much heart. It had a lot of spectacle but no humor and heart, and then when I saw it the second time with Mewes, I was like oh, the heart is in the viewer because like I had a moment with Mewes where we’re like parademons, and so there was heart, heart enough for me, and then people were like he’s got a heart-on and stuff like that, and starting tearing me apart for flipping the script and for changing my opinion.
There was one internet story I was reading where they’re like “of course people are entitled to change their opinion upon a second viewing, except him” like you know, essentially I couldn’t or whatever, but again I didn’t change my opinion, I liked the movie both times.”
A few things to get ahold of. First, there is no reason he can’t change his mind or come out of a second viewing feeling different about a film. Whether your first pass of a movie was positive or negative, a second viewing will undoubtedly reveal aspects of the film you didn’t notice before, for better or worse. Secondly, I thought his thoughts in both occasions were pretty spot on, though I always disagreed that the film lacked any heart. Still, he did state he enjoyed the film in his initial take.
As for the “why is this news” point, my response to that is you can’t have it both ways. You’re an avid commenter about superheroes and comics, and you have numerous podcasts and a TV show where you speak about those subjects every week. To suddenly be mystified by the fact that someone cares about your opinion is ridiculous. Either people are going to care about what you have to say, or they aren’t. It can’t only be when it doesn’t get on your nerves.
Just saying.
