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House review of Daredevil (2003)
This is one of those films I’ve never been able to get more than 30 minutes into without switching off before, but now it’s available in a Director’s Cut version I thought I’d give it another go. Did I make it this time? Read on...
The movie starts on familiar comic book territory way with a kid called Matt who gets covered in some nuclear gunk and wakes up to find he has super powers. So far so Spiderman, but as the character of Daredevil is also from the Marvel stable at least they’re only ripping off themselves here. What’s more interesting about the resultant Daredevil character (and marginally more credible perhaps) is that the nuclear gunk permanently blinds the kid and heightens his remaining senses such that they become super attenuated. The notion that he could “see” by listening to the way sounds reflected off surfaces etc is almost believable and is illustrated by some rather nifty special effects.
That interesting idea only gets you so far though, and what made this new director’s cut more compelling than the original version is the extra characterisation: the time spent exploring Matt’s childhood and then his “day job” life as a lawyer. Indeed the relationship Matt has with his sidekick ends up being more interesting than the romance that dominates the first version of the movie (from my recollection anyway…as I said, I never watched to the end before). And the church, which in the original version was pretty much just a setting for one of the action scenes becomes a much more integral part of the plot, with the Church (capital C) becoming part of the plot, with a fleshed out role for the priest and the appearance of a mysterious nun, who may or may not be Daredevil’s guardian angel. The overall feel of the movie is much darker and more gritty this time, which suits my tastes.
Ben Affleck does an okay job as the Daredevil actually, better than I remember first time around (though younger bro Casey is the one getting the attention these days). I couldn’t stomach Colin Farrell’s frankly ridiculous Bullseye character, but this *is* a comic book, as I had to keep reminding myself.
And I really could have done without the “rawk” soundtrack, which meant that I switched it off as soon as the credits started rolling….but hey, I just about made it through to the end this time!
| Title | Daredevil |
|---|---|
| Director | Mark Steven Johnson |
| Genre | Action, Fantasy |
| UK Cert. |  |
| Spittin rating |
 5 |
