Review of Smelchak (1919) by Zachary C — 18 Jan 2012

I recently read Brian Michael Bendis' run on Daredevil and was blown away by how good it was. Out of curiosity (and my better judgement) I decided I had to watch this movie.

Unfortunately, the quality of the comic book is lost to the film. Director Mark Steven Johnson got just about everything wrong. The casting was poor - the most obvious example is Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin. In the comics, he's a fat white guy. In the film, hes a black body builder. I could have lived with this if Michael Clarke Duncan could play the role of a villain - but he's just to damn charming.

Ben Affleck was mis-cast, as was Jennifer Garner. Their combined acting was pretty poor - I just couldn't suspend my belief long enough to accept either of them as heroes.

I think the director just tried to cram too much into this film. The film covers Matt Murdock gaining his powers (and disability) as a child, his fathers death, his career as a lawyer, his romantic relationship with Elektra, his friendship with Foggy Nelson and Ben Ulrich and his feud with both Bullseye and Kingpin. It was just too much - the movie was saturated and watered down with plot devices.

Aesthetically speaking, the film was too dark. Many of the scenes were filmed at night or in dark interiors. I found it distracting during the action scenes; the sequences were hard to follow because of the dimly lit sets.

Finally, I'd just like to point out that this movie is CHEESY. Good god. I actually laughed out loud a couple of times because of how bad the acting/dialogue was.

The bottom line? Skip it, especially if you're a fan of the Daredevil comics.