Pros: Good fight scene, great kiss scene, Jennifer Garner!
Cons: Colin Farrell is borderline ridiculous, hokey script
The Bottom Line: Affleck and Garner are dazzling. Farrell and Duncan fizzle and fade - Daredevil is worth the effort, just check your mind at the door.
Okay, so it's not as bad as the title to this review might make it sound - but it ain't "Citizen Kane" if you know what I mean. But really, who's expecting it to be? With the current wave of 'major' superhero movies flooding the release chart, including The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, a just announced Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, (two) Batman projects, (two)Superman projects, and another X-Men around the corner it seemed somewhat strange to me when I first heard that a lesser known character like Daredevil was getting his own project. I kind of rolled my eyes and thought to myself "I guess the studios are striking while the iron is hot".
Perhaps 20th Century Fox and Regency Pictures figured the only way to sell the film was with big names - hot, rising talent. We can thank God now that the original choice for the lead (Vin Diesel) couldn't participate because of prior commitments. Instead, (People's Sexiest Man Alive) Ben Affleck signed on. Affleck and director pal Kevin Smith (who makes a clever cameo in the film as a mortician), have long sung the virtues of the Daredevil character and cited the comic as their serial of choice. Smith has even written a few of the books for Marvel Comics in an effort to drum up readership in the past. Even though Affleck has struggled to be convincing in some of his previous action features (Reindeer Games, Phantoms), he seemed like a good choice to play The Man Without Fear.
One of the great things about 2001's Spider-Man was its balancing act between backstory and action. The first film in a series such as Spider-Man or Daredevil should be devoted to setting up a true appreciation for why an average guy (albeit with uncanny super-human traits) would risk his neck night after night in the slums of Hell's Kitchen dressed in red tights (or the current trend - all leather outfits). We the people not only want to see the good guys kick major scum butt, we also want to know what makes them tick. Like Spider-Man, screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson (Simon Birch) appreciates the fact that comic book fans are a fickle group - you've got to sweat the details no matter how tedious.
During the first quarter of Daredevil we learn how he became a blind vigilante. His past is revealed through a flashback of sorts, and like his contemporary (and in the comics sometime friend, sometime foe) Spider-Man, he's driven by guilt and vengeance. He's been given a gift - and with that gift comes great responsibility. Since both characters were created by Stan Lee (who also makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo), both share similar backgrounds. Unfortunately, we don't get to see much of the young Matt Murdock as he transforms from a geeky nerd, to a full-blown acrobatic marvel. It seems to happen in an instant, shortly after the loss of his sight.
You see, Daredevil is just a regular guy, except for a few neat attributes. After the tragic loss of his sight (where radioactive chemicals are sprayed across his face), he finds that he has a kind of sonar - a kind of super-hearing that allows him to "see" through sound. This particular 'power' is created with dazzling success on the screen, especially during fight scenes and rain sequences where his entire realm of 'vision' is enhanced by the cascading sound of the raindrops. Though this super-hearing is a blessing, it's also a curse as loud noises are a detriment to our hero. Murdock also has an innate sense of smell, and his other senses have been heightened as well.
By day, Murdock and his best friend Franklin Nelson (played to the hilt by Jon Favreau of Swingers fame) are attorneys working mostly pro bono for the disadvantaged and poor who live in Hell's Kitchen (a slum in New York). By night, Murdock dons the red leather cowl as Daredevil - somersaulting through the air, pummeling crooks with vicious justice and an unrelenting hatred. If you thought Batman was off the deep end with mommy/daddy issues wait until you get a load of this hero. He's so savage in his street justice that at one point he wonders to himself whether he's the good guy or the bad guy.
We never wonder though, as Affleck's puppy dog eyes, brooding charisma, disheveled hair and sucked in jowls carry Murdock's character throughout the film. Even though he slips into a sort-of monotone "Superhero" voice when he throws on the suit, we still know it's just likeable blind Matt Murdock under the mask - or better yet loveable Ben Affleck (which I can't believe I just said).
The plotline is pretty simple. It seems the Kingpin (who in the comics was a very huge bald white guy, but is inexplicably and inexcusably played by very large black guy Michael Clarke Duncan of The Green Mile) has secretly been running all the crime in New York for years. Murdock has made it his mission to put an end to the Kingpin's reign of terror - little does he know (but we know very early on) that the Kingpin is responsible for catastrophic personal tragedies in Daredevil's life.
It seems that one of the Kingpin's top men, Ambassador Nikolaos Natchios (played by Erick Avari, The Mummy) wants out of the life. Unfortunately for he and his daughter Elektra Natchios (Alias' Jennifer Garner), no one leaves 'the family' and lives to tell about it. It's a good thing Nikolaos has trained his daughter in every form of martial arts - and that she looks really good in tight leather pants while she protects herself from evildoers. Of course, why she's been trained in all that is never really explained, and it's forced on the audience that we should just accept the fact that she's bad to the bone from the get-go. Kingpin enlists the help of hired assassin Bullseye (played way over the top by rising sensation Colin Farrell, The Recruit, Minority Report), who can make a thrown weapon out of anything - including paper clips, plates and #2 pencils.
As fate would have it, Murdock and Elektra have met in a prior (and I might add ridiculous) scene in which they quickly fall for one another through a series of kung-fu moves on a crowded playground. Sound stupid? It is. In fact, I would not have objected to screenwriter Johnson being banished to Hollywood purgatory for this hack job if not for his envisioning a truly magnificent rooftop tryst later on where the two kiss in the rain (echoes of Spider-Man yes, but almost better than that scene).
When Bullseye finally gets around to dealing with Elektra's father (he spends half the movie offing geriatric patients and sneering with a quiver... that's right folks, he's baaaaaaad), he makes it look like it was the work of Daredevil, thereby convincing Elektra that Daredevil will pay with blood. And that's the genius of many of Marvel Comics' greatest and most believable characters - the ones they love the most are usually the ones who hate them.
The battle scenes and stunts are spectacular. CGI is used to the hilt, but thankfully most of the fight scenes are done in the dark so we don't see how fake things really look. This hero, and this plotline is more gritty and dark than Spider-Man, so if you're taking your kids be warned that there's a lot of blood, and even a scene where a guy is cut in half off camera.
The script really is half-baked. It starts out very promising with the backstory and set-up, but the payoffs just aren't there. The best scenes are the light, funny ones between Affleck and Favreau as they sit around and debate women and their work, not the full-on battle scenes between heroes and villains. Some of the lines are cornier than anything you'd actually find in a comic book - more like in an Arnold Schwarzennegger film, but when truly great talent like Garner and Pantoliano are the mouths that relate them, it's a bit more forgivable.
Colin Farrell's Bullseye is an issue. For a film this rooted in 'reality' (and it truly is for a comic book film), Farrell goes beyond hamming it up. I've really enjoyed this actor in every other film, but he's too over the top here, and his character lost way too much menace as a consequence. Let's put it this way - Will Farrell could've done a better job. Michael Clarke Duncan runs into the same problem with his portrayal of Kingpin. He already had one strike against him since he looked little like his comic counterpart, but I figured an Oscar nominated actor would try to put a little acting into his first real supervillain role (Planet Of The Apes doesn't count, no matter what you say). He's reduced to spouting his lines in his John Coffey drawl, and really doesn't look like much more than a cheap bouncer in a sharp tuxedo. That's unfortunate, because as any fan of the Daredevil or Spider-Man comics knows, Kingpin is a truly formidable enemy.
As Elektra, Jennifer Garner is a Godsend. I truly hope this film is a star-making vehicle for this very talented actress. I enjoy the show Alias very much - its physical demands show their fruition every time Garner has to make a fight scene believable. She was also stunning in her small role as a high-dollar hooker in Catch Me If You Can. Garner alone saves this film from receiving a mere two stars. The script is debilitating for the character, as there is little development and she's delegated merely to window dressing in most of her scenes. Still, a stalwart actress, Garner makes the best of it and comes out smelling like roses (an inside pun you might get after you've seen Daredevil.
Corny dialogue, noticeably fake CGI, and two villains that are severely under par - yet I can't shake the sense of satisfaction I got from the film. I went in not expecting much - and not much is what I got, yet strangely it was enough for me this time. Perhaps it's the fact that there have been so many miserable attempts at superhero screen translations that when one gets it even somewhat right, you've got to root for it.
Daredevil won't be winning any awards next Oscar season, but it just may find a place on your DVD shelf when it's released down the road. It's a fun, fast-paced film where you can truly leave your brain at the door. Of course it's left wide open for a Daredevil 2, let's just hope they find a few bad guys that are worth watching.
By day, blind attorney Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck) toils for justice in Hell s Kitchen. By night, he s Daredevil, The Man Without Fear -- a powerful, m...More at Buy.com
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