Daredevil Movie Review - from Coming Soon
"Surprisingly to me, Ben does a great job as Daredevil. I went in with reservations but he's the right man for the job, especially with the blind scenes. Totally believable."
Daredevil
Reviewed by: Chuck the Movieguy
Rating: 8 of 10
Movie Details: View here
Starring:
Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock/Daredevil
Jennifer Garner as Elektra Natchios
Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin
Colin Farrell as Bullseye
Jon Favreau as Foggy Nelson
Joe Pantoliano as Ben Urich
David Keith as Jack Murdock
Scott Terra as Young Matt Murdock
Erick Avari as Ambassador Nikolaos Natchios
Ellen Pompeo as Karen Page
Kevin Smith as Jack Kirby
Story:
A young boy is blinded by radioactive waste and in return his remaining senses are amplified to a superhuman level. When he grows up he becomes a lawyer and if he loses he takes the law into his own hands to serve justice and fight crime. A blind superhero with no fear, Daredevil.
What Worked:
Elektra. I must admit that I am a HUGE "Alias" fan and think that Jennifer Garner is a gift from God, but she does a great job dancing with the devil and makes the chemistry between them seem real. In the comic book, Elektra is an assassin, a hired killer, but here she is an innocent highly-trained woman out to avenge her father's death. She looks great with the weapons and all her work with the training and fighting pays off.
Surprisingly to me, Ben does a great job as Daredevil. I went in with reservations but he's the right man for the job, especially with the blind scenes. Totally believable.
The special effects are excellent, the noise was a little on the loud side, but I can live with that.
And now for Bullseye. Colin Farrell is the man! He steals every scene he is in with his bald head, his 100 percent accurate skills with weapons from killing a man with paper clips, pencils or peanuts, you can always count on his psychotic look to give you a thrill. Kingpin was good as well. Michael Clarke Duncan was the best choice and quite possible the only choice to play this larger than life muscular villain for this role. The only thing missing was the necklace I always remember him wearing in the comic books.
Daredevil's radar sense in this movie is explained to us (and shown to us) how Daredevil "see's" sound waves reflected off objects. It's very impressive, especially when it rains.
What Didn't Work:
Before my screening, director Mark Steven Johnson stood up to say a few words and one of them was that Daredevil was his version of the comic book. The Daredevil of my youth would never intentionally allow anyone to die, but here he has no problem letting a man get killed on a subway track and then "claim" the act with a flaming DD. I didn't like that.
I also had a HUGE problem with Matt Murdock after a rough night of crime fighting, takes prescription drugs. During the interviews after seeing the film, the director, Ben and the producers all defended the scene by stating they wanted to show that he was a real man, who got hurt and needed painkillers to deal with the injuries he sustained from a night of fighting crime. I think it was unnecessary. In a movie that is going to be viewed by a large number of impressionable kids, taking drugs of any kind is bad.
Which brings me to another matter, they went to all the trouble of showing Daredevil and the villains as real people and Daredevil using his billy club to get around, they blew it when they show Elektra and Bullseye being able to "leap" 20-30 feet into the air (or so it seemed).
There seems to be a few missing scenes in the movie, one noticeably from the trailer where Elektra tells Daredevil she has to go because her bodyguard is here and a few other scenes hint of some missing knowledge. The character of Stick is not present and they use a tank of liquid that Matt Murdock sleeps in to block out all sounds so he can rest in peace.
The role of Karen Page is done in one cameo scene with Ellen Pompeo who blew me away in "Moonlight Mile". One can only hope in the sequel that they use more of this wonderful actress who is wasted here.
So many people find out Matt Murdock is Daredevil, he should go up to people and say," Hi, I'm Daredevil"
Bottom Line:
"Daredevil" rocked! It's dark and gritty and a little different from the comic book I read as a younger man, but holds on to most of the important elements. Lots of violence, a sexual bed scene with Daredevil and Elektra give it the PG-13 rating. Make sure you stay till the end for a bonus scene that will answer a question you will most certainly have.