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Movie: Daredevil
Starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan,
Colin Farrel; Written and Directed by Mark Steven Johnson
(20th Century Fox Films)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
Daredevil is an entertaining movie but it's dark and violent, especially compared to last summer's Marvel-ous hit, Spiderman. Actually Daredevil's like what the Batman movies should have been. You do get lots of kung fu scenes that are on a Jackie Chan level of fun but you also get a hero that dishes out some serious beatings that takes this movie well out of normal kids' fare.
Many will call this standard comic book drivel, but that would be selling this movie short. Following the general Daredevil story line that Frank Miller established in the 70's, this is hardly comic. Still, with a movie like this you have to go in for a lot of suspension of disbelief. You aren't supposed to ask questions like: If Daredevil's blind, who made his costume and billy club so precisely? And if he's seeing by sound, how does he still hear small things in the middle of a gun fight? Maybe we should just stipulate that suspension of disbelief is REQUIRED. All that aside there is a fair amount of meat on the story's bones. There is a Catholic confessional aspect to Daredevil that I don't remember from the original comics, and the idea of regret over becoming so violent to fight violence is a strong theme in the movie. It gives the whole production a lot more stature that it might have otherwise.
Writer/Director Johnson does especially well imagining what the four-senses-only world of a hypersensitive blind man might be like. I loved the audio work. Daredevil handles a rock soundtrack better than most movies do, but much more than that, the no-eyes world young Matt is thrown into is portrayed very well in both visual and audio dimensions. I also like the idea of Murdock going to sleep in an isolation chamber to cut off his hyper-senses from the world.
I'm a little annoyed that Frank Miller's Elektra doesn't - whoops I was just about to reveal a plot point that the movie turns on. Suffice it to say that Jennifer Garner isn't an Oscar-level actress, but she makes up for it with eye-popping action scenes. Likewise Ben Affleck. He carries the story and makes great action sequences fun to watch but he's still not as compelling as he might be. The villains seem to be more memorable. Colin Farrel as Bullseye is deliciously manic and Michael Clarke Duncan makes a great Kingpin. Fun cameos include Marvel Comic's patriarch Stan Lee on a street corner (young Matt Murdock saves him from stepping into traffic), and former Daredevil writer and Director Kevin Smith plays a lab technician.
Of the three recent movies using Marvel characters I liked this one better than X-Men, but Spiderman was a bit more to my taste than Daredevil.
The Skinny:
Am I glad I saw the film? Yes, this was a fun ride.
Would I go to see it again? I think the movie will definitely have its fans who'll want to but once on the big screen was enough for me.
© 2003 - Rusty Pipes