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Reviews - Daredevil |
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I am not a comic book person. I have not
read, bought or even looked at a comic book in over twenty years and
even when I was interested in comics, the only ones I looked at were
Archie, Richie Rich and Spider-Man. In fact, the only comics I have
really taken any interest in over the years are the one-pagers that
appear every 20 or 30 pages in Playboy. And even then, I only look at
them for a few seconds as I browse the magazine for boobies and shaved
bushes. My point is, is that I went into Daredevil not knowing who the
hell or what the hell he was. As far as I knew, Daredevil was Ben
Affleck and Ben Affleck was Daredevil - end of story.
Well, I came out of Daredevil knowing the superhero a bit more - but not
nearly as much as I would have liked. Daredevil is a character whose
human name is Matt Murdock. As a young boy, Matt is blinded by
radioactive waste but fortunately for him, all is not lost. At the same
time, his other senses are enhanced beyond human comprehension. As Matt
grows older, he decides to use his powers to help good people and kill
bad people. Yes, he kills the bad, which immediately told me that
Daredevil is not your typical superhero. Could you really picture your
friendly neighborhood Spider-Man killing your friendly neighborhood
purse-snatcher? Daredevil might. In some ways, that makes Daredevil a
very cool and somewhat unique superhero. I just wish the movie would
have given us more of a chance to get to know him.
The first thirty minutes of the movie gives us a quick overview of
Matt's childhood and what brought him to be the superhuman vigilante. It
is an interesting and enlightening thirty minutes of Daredevil's life.
But then the movie sort of jumps to about twenty years later and all
character development ends right there. We did not learn much about Matt
or Daredevil except for the fact that he was a blind lawyer and he could
smell a hot chick from a mile away - one of his more impressive
attributes. And let me tell you, Matt sniffs out one of the hottest
chicks I have ever laid my perverted eyes upon - Jennifer Garner, who
plays Elektra in the movie. I have heard of Ms. Garner before but never
paid too much attention to her. Let me tell you, she really is something
to behold. She definitely ranks at least number 2 on my now updated list
of hottest chicks of all time. Back to my bitching about character
development - Bullseye (Colin Farrell), Kingpin (Michael Duncan Clarke),
Foggy Nelson (a chubby Jon Favreau) - all cool characters but we know
nothing about them. Apparently Foggy and Matt are lifelong friends - did
not know that. Who is Kingpin and how did he weasel his way to the top
of the crime chain? And what the hell happened to Bullseye that made him
so pissed off? And one other thing - how did Daredevil's back get so
many scars on it? So many questions - but for non-Daredevil comic book
readers, there are not many answers.
With all that being said, there are many elements of Daredevil that I
quite enjoyed. Like the whole effect of showing the audience how and
what Daredevil sees - very well done. The action scenes are excellent,
the movie is dark and it is not afraid to journey off that
carved-in-stone Hollywood path - like having a good guy with a very dark
side and killing off a main character or two.
As an aside, I was surprised at Affleck's bad hairdo. I know he is blind
and everything, but usually Affleck has the cool do going. Not this
time. His hair looked like an old mop.
Overall, I have to say I quite enjoyed Daredevil. I don't want to do
this, but it did go through my mind and it is going to go through
everyone's mind who sees the movie - is Daredevil better than
Spider-Man? Well, about halfway through the movie, I was thinking yes,
it is indeed better. But the lack of character development really left
me wondering. I have to say, I did like the Daredevil costume and
Bullseye and Kingpin were superior baddies compared to Green Goblin,
whose costume I still cannot forgive. But in the end, I suppose I would
prefer Spider-Man, although thinking about it now, I did prefer Affleck
to Tobey Maguire. A Spider-Man vs. Daredevil movie would definitely kick
some ass. Perhaps if elements from both movies were mixed into one, we
would have the best comic book movie of all-time. But until then, I
guess we just have to wait until the next Spider-Man and, I am sure, the
next Daredevil movie to let the comparisons begin again. Spider-Man wins
round one.
 
- 7/10
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Brendan Cullin - Senior
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