Review of Daredevil (2003) by Kevin B — 30 Sep 2011

Daredevil seems to be one of those superhero movies that"s not as innovative and exciting as the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises. Yet, it's not as ridiculously hokey and bad as Catwoman or Ghost Rider either. It just...is.

Ben Affleck plays Matt Murdock, a blind attorney by day and the red-suited crimefighter by night. Affleck's giant frame looks clumsy in the Daredevil costume, and in most of the fight scenes, the top buttons come undone leaving him fighting in what appears to be V-neck pajamas and a leather mask. As Daredevil, Affleck hisses his lines to convey grittiness and menace, but it just comes across as forced.

Surprisingly, Affleck really carries himself when playing the blind lawyer, Murdock. A blind consultant worked on the film to teach Affleck slight mannerisms of blind people to help him fully round out the role, and I'll be damned if he didn't pull it off. There are times in this movie when you really feel like you're watching a blind man.

The story runs the risk of many of the Batman movies, in that there are almost too many characters. You have Jennifer Garner playing Elektra, Matt's love interest and a superhero in her own right. Michael Clarke Duncan playing the city crimelord, The Kingpin. Colin Farrell playing crazed assassin Bullseye with a campy glee. Joe Pantoliano as Ben Urich, the city newspaper's crime reporter. And Jon Favreau as Murdock's friend and law partner, Foggy Nelson. All of these characters are interesting enough, and I would have liked to have seen more time spent fleshing them out more...especially Garner's Elektra. But with only two hours running time, this cast was basically introduced then thrown into the fighting.

The fighting scenes are where Daredevil really loses its edge. Affleck looks so clumsy and cumbersome when he's fighting, it's a miracle he doesn't lose every time. Garner holds her own in the kung fu sequences, but it's painfully obvious that everyone involved could have used some extra practice in the wire-fighting techniques. Some of the flipping and floating looked so laborous, you half expected one of the actors to get stuck hanging on one of those wires midway through.

You can tell the people involved with this movie were true fans of the comic book series (it's almost distracting how many secondary characters were named after legendary Daredevil artists). You just wish they were able to deliver a movie that was worthy of that fandom.