Rating: -
Bought this movie from amazon 2 years ago & have watched it all the way through 5 times. I keep re-watching certain scenes, like where Bullseye kills the guy in the Pub with a paperclip. Colin's menacing look is hilarious. It's such a cartoon, over the top crazy. Affleck & Garner are great together. Michael Clarke Duncan is strong. Whenever life is walking all over me, I just watch any scene with Bullseye & laugh my a** off, get back in the groove. I have no idea why this movie didn't sell more tickets. It is a super great presentation of the comic!
Rating: -
Before I go into any kind of criticism I wanted to make sure I pointed out the good in Daredevil, because there's really a lot there to enjoy.
I LOVED ... I mean ... LOVED the origin story in the beginning. It was PERFECT absolutely perfect. I can't say it enough, although a character or two was missing, they perfectly captured the spirit of what made Daredevil such an appealing character.
The casting was pretty good. I know I'm going against the grain on this one, but, in my opinion, I thought Ben Affleck was a terrific Matt Murdock/Daredevil. I felt that although Jennifer Garner looked amazing as Electra, her performance came across a little rigid, as if she couldn't relax into the role. Colin Ferrell was hysterical as Bullseye. Ferrell was clearly having the time of his life making the movie. Michael Clarke Duncan was OK as Kingpin, he certainly brought the correct physical presence to role role, if nothing else ...
The stunts and 'shadow-vision' and effects, I enjoyed them all. I also LOVED all of the little nods to the comic book readers such as Frank Miller and Kevin Smith's cameo, seeing long-time artist John Romita's name as Jack Murdock's opponent.
I loved the coy interaction between Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson or Matt Murdock and Electra. I ate it all up, I just couldn't get enough.
But of all the things they could have possibly slipped on, how did they actually slip on the character of Daredevil? They turned him into Batman for God's sake! Daredevil isn't a dark brooding anti-hero and he certainly isn't a murderer. He's the guy you see leaping off of a twenty-story building without a net with a big grin on his face. He's Spiderman without the Spider.
I was actually heartbroken that they had built up this insane amount of positive momentum and then lost it all when they turned Daredevil into a cold-blooded killer. I know they incorporated it into the storyline of Daredevil "finding himself" but it was just so far out of his character it bordered on being unforgivable for me. Try as I might I really had a hard time getting past it; especially in light of how much they got right.
Not a bad movie by any stretch, I'd still look forward to seeing a sequel, but it definitely has flaws.
Rating: -
To me, this is a really underrated superhero movie. I think it's maybe just a step behind SpiderMan, X-Men, and Batman Begins. You really can't expect too much when you watch these movies, so this one really exceeded my expectations. I thought the special effects and story were just superb, and yeah, I realise it's not the best acting in the world, but that's to be expected.
Rating: -
Daredevil is proof that a labor of love can still turn out to be a poor final product. A dream film for Ben Affleck, he nonetheless turns in his usually bland performance in the film. He's not a menacing actor or someone who does angst well, and those two aspects hold him back significantly in the title role. Unfortunately, Matt Murdock/Daredevil is the only character given any sort of real back story at all, which renders the rest of the cast boring at best and tedious at worst. All we know about Daredevil's love interest Elektra is that she was trained by a different martial arts tutor every year (which, incidentally, would be more likely to make her the worst martial artist ever, not the best). All we know about the thug Bullseye is that he growls a lot and never misses his target. And in a criminal waste of talent, Michael Clarke Duncan, who was the perfect choice to play the villainous Kingpin, is reduced to a character whose entire history is, "I grew up in the Bronx."
The script has enormous gaps in logic, and is downright loony at some spots. For example, Matt Murdock - supposedly nothing more than a blind lawyer - has a massive martial arts duel with Elektra on a playground in broad daylight. Yet somehow he's still supposed to have a secret identity, even though there's no way he should be able to do that. The plot progression is supposed to take Daredevil from a merciless vigilante and make him into a hero. Instead, he beats up villains to begin the movie, and he beats up the Kingpin to end it, with no real progression in character other than what the narrative insists is there.
The redeeming part of Daredevil is its function as a bad action movie. The fight scenes use a lot of slow motion and computer imagery, and thus make for a cheesy but enjoyable pleasure. If you watch the film in the context that it's a parody of the superhero genre or a dumb action movie, it's bearable. As anything that is supposed to be taken even remotely seriously, though, it's a sign that Marvel thinks any movie bearing the name of one of its popular characters will sell to the ignorant masses, no matter how bad the film really is.
Rating: -
This is one movie you won't want to not miss! Honestly, whose idea was it to have daredevil play fight Electra? That scene makes me so sick to my stomach. I tried to vomit but I couldn't because my vomit was afraid of seeing this movie. The soundtrack is the worst! It is as if they found a bad compilation cd on the ground in a highschool parking lot and decided, hey, lets use this instead of some composer and his crummy orchestra. I bought this movie hoping they would have cut out the horrible electra love scenes and changed the music but they hadn't. They kept everything that sucked about the original release and that makes it even suckier. This is the only comicbook movie worse than Fantastic 4. Keep your 7 dollars. Do not buy this dvd unless you want to hurt yourself.
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