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Daredevil

Release Date: 2003

Rated: PG-13

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke-Duncan, Colin Ferrel

There have been many comic book live action features. The big change in comic feature films that brought them into the modern era began more or less at the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, but with the recreation of Batman by Tim Burton a new approach was born. There have been some low rate comic movies, some extremely good ones, and especially after the release of X-Men, comic films have been on the rise.

However, most of them have at least tried to be friendly to families and children, with the noted exception of Spawn and the Blade films. Spiderman was pretty light and fun, X-Men was somewhat dark but still maintained that sense of adventurous comic book fare. The Tim Burton films of Batman had up to this point been really the blackest of the "family" comic book characters on the big screen.

Then along came a devil…Daredevil that is.

As anyone familiar to the story (or comic books in general) will know, the story is that of young Matt Murdock, a boy with a bum of a father who at one point was a professional fighter. Then his dad got involved with a crime crowd, and was being pressured more and more into doing their dirty work to keep things steady for his family of two. Matt discovers this, and fleeing in emotional turmoil from his father runs into the path of a forklift carrying some bio hazardous chemicals. It sprays him in the face, and he is blinded for life.

Crushed by this, Matt’s father rededicates himself to his boxing career to be a strong example for his son, and they promise each other that they will live without fear, and always fight to win. And so the happy couple has a great relationship growing…until Matt’s dad refuses to throw a fight that his former bosses insist he should. Why he’s still involved with these people I’m not sure, but as a result of his resistance Matt’s father is killed by thugs, and lying dead in an alleyway Matt discovers his father’s body with a single red rose placed on top of the corpse.

As so many people in comics seem in the habit of doing, Matt swears to avenge his father, and vows that what happened to him will never happen to anyone ever again, and he will use his superhuman powers to do it. Ah, yes, superhuman you say. Where did THAT come from you ask? Why, the chemicals that got splattered in his face of course! Where would superhumans be without radioactivity?


So anyway being blind Matt cannot see, but the chemicals give him the ability to basically see like a bat’s radar does, by creating vibrations that he hears, and visually this is represented by us seeing Matt’s POV which is blackness, and blue outlines flashing now and then to show us what is before him. He also has super strength and agility (a prerequisite in this business) and armed with his father’s devil mask from prize fighting, Matt adopts the name Daredevil and starts fighting the crime of "Hell’s Kitchen," where he grew up.

He becomes a lawyer, busting crooks by night and day, but he is not the traditional good guy going out and nabbing baddies, taking them to the cops. Instead DD chooses to murder his victims more often than not, playing the judge and jury. This makes him an anti hero, a vigilante with a dark side. In fact in many ways he’s more dangerous than the villains he busts.

However as the film progresses they do attempt to insert morality and make him think about his right to basically play God in red tights. His main line as he starts feeling guilty over it is, "I’m not the bad…I’m not the bad guy." Not done the best, but at least they try to represent standards and consequences to what he is doing, though that still doesn’t really stop him from whacking some butt later on in the film. They try to give people of faith something to cling onto with him being Catholic and talking to a father every once in a while, but considering the rest of the film it’s pretty pointless.

Anyway, soon Matt meets the hot, lightly dressed Elektra, a chick whose father is involved in some shady dealings with a man named Wilson Fisk, AKA the Kingpin…NYC’s biggest crime boss. Matt has sworn to take down the Kingpin, and now he has fallen in lust with the daughter of the man who is in a dark light with the crime head. Isn’t that convenient? Incidentally I say "falling in lust," because they don’t fall in love. They meet, they sleep together, and they both have great martial arts talents. It ain’t love, folks. The sex scene is pretty graphic for a PG-13, and is completely inappropriate and unneeded for ANY REASON! It drives me crazy. But that’s how they hope to make money since I guess they figured no man would come to this film anyway.

Well now, Kingpin decides to off Elektra’s father, and uses a guy named Bullseye to do it. Bullseye is not introduced as having superhuman powers, but he can hit anything he aims at, using just about ANYTHING as a projectile. He is really cool, if not a little nasty, and is funny to watch. He’s an Aussie or something, so we get some good lines with accent included. He kills Elektra’s father, but he manages to frame it on DareDevil, so now Elektra is on a hell raising mission to wipe out the man she got wiggy with. Yeah! Intrigue! Plot twist! 

She finally finds DD, she stabs him through the chest (nasty scene!) and then unmasks him to discover…holy crap! It’s her lover! Oh no! She then has to face Bullseye, and…if you don’t want the entire plot blown for you stop reading…TOO LATE! Bullseye kills her with nothing but class, and then Matt, somehow recovered from that lovely little stab, fights Bullseye in a Catholic church and for a little while gets his butt whomped, until he injures Bullseye’s hands and sends him on a meeting with a windshield far below them. Ouch. Discovering from Bullseye that Wilson Fisk is the Kingpin, AND that Fisk was the one who killed his father, DD goes after the big guy and the best fight scene in the film ensues. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Anyway, the story is interesting, fun at times, but very, very dark. The actor’s are alright for their roles, but the villains are the best cast as always. Michael Clarke Duncan is the best actor in the film, and has the most effective portrayal of his character. What’s more, he brings a whole new level to the Kingpin, because in the past the crime boss was white, but he takes the comic book character into another race and makes him better than he’s ever been. Absolute pleasure to watch him play his character. But Ben Affleck, while he was good, was not exactly what one would have expected for the movie version of the character. He made DD younger, and on some levels it works, some it does not. Some characters are better older and more mature. Making DD younger was not as satisfying, but I suppose it would not have been as "relatable" then to the audiences who like these films.

I personally would not advise this film for families at all, or for someone who can’t take intense action violence. This film is not a happy one, but it is exciting. If it had been cleaner it would have been a masterpiece, but as it is Marvel made some very bad moves in this production. Hopefully they won’t make the same mistake again, and remember that it’s with the family audiences where their profits lie.