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Daredevil - 2/14/03 - PG-13 - 103m
Ben Affleck
- Daredevil
Jennifer Garner - Elektra
Michael Clarke Duncan - KingPin
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Screenplay: Brian Helgeland & Mark Steven Johnson
JEF
Pure fluff of a movie. The only power to gain viewers is the
actors and actress.
I really wanted to like this movie. I’m a bit of a comic book geek,
and was looking forward to learn about a character I new nothing about
other than he has a cool name and uses nunchaku.
Storyline: A kid has a freak accident with some hazardous
waste that not only blinds him, but also boosts his remaining sense of
hearing. Not really a super power like spiderman, or superman, but something
that gives him the benefit of cat like reflexes from a seemingly handicapped
challenge of blindness. He learns that his father was murdered, and vows
to “never give up”, and decides to defend the people of a
small neighborhood in NYC, nicknamed “Hell’s Kitchen”.
The kid, Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck), grows up and becomes a lawyer by
day, and a crimefighter by night. He meets a woman Elektra (Jennifer Garner),
and falls for her, and she for him. But it turns out that she is the daughter
of a rich man, Ambassador Natchios, who is in cahoots with “Kingpin”
(Michael Clarke Duncan). After a falling out between Natchios and Kingpin,
Kingpin hires a hit man “Bullseye” (Collin Farrell), to dispose
of Natchios, and his daughter Elektra. Now Daredevil is on a mission to
protect his girlfriend.
This movie fell short in every aspect except one. The sound in this movie
was great. The use of the surround sound effects was the best I’ve
heard in a movie. The only other positive thing I can say about this movie
was to see Jennifer Garner in her leather outfit on the big screen.
The Daredevil character made no sense. Matt Murdock was a lawyer who took
pro bono cases, and defended clients who paid him in fish. Yet he’s
got this super swanky apartment with gadgets and high tech weapons much
like Batman. Was he supposed to be a poor lawyer defending those who could
not pay, or a rich lawyer? Did he have super powers or was he incredibly
fit? Many times we see him jumping/flying from building rooftop to rooftop.
He often quoted the saying from when he was a boy to “Never give
up”… Never give what up? The fight for justice? The defense
of the innocent? What was his motivation? He didn’t seem out for
revenge for his father’s death until the very end.
The acting was sub-par. I’m a big fan of Jennifer Garner from her
hit TV series “ALIAS”. I’ve seen her act better on her
TV series than on this movie. Ben Affleck just had no dimension to his
character. Colin Farrell played a good bad guy, but his performance was
a bit over the top. I did like Jon Favreau’s character but he was
a minor roll. Michael Duncan did well as Kingpin, but basically he just
had to be a big guy. Not exactly a stretch for him to act big.
The movie was dark. Not dark as in brooding, but dark as in no light.
I think this was intentional to hide the lame effects. The effects were
basically the use of wires to make the characters look like they were
sort of flying. How old is this? With today’s technology and the
dominant role of computers with effects why did they only use them a few
times and then resort to the old school of hanging from a wire –
Like some kid in a Peter Pan high school play.
It used to be that any movie based on a comic book hero was usually lame
until Batman was a hit. Batman sort of gave us hope, and showed that a
comic book hero could make for a good movie. Then came the X-men, and
recently Spiderman, which did well. But now with Daredevil, I think this
is a step backwards in bringing the comic book heroes to the big screen.
Here’s hoping that “The Hulk” will be good, and that
someday we’ll get to see the next Batman movie which hopefully will
be better than the last. Hollywood, if you’re listening… There
are a bunch of good comic books to bring to the big screen; Darkness,
BattleChasers, Ironman, Captain America, Batgirl, Fathom, Green Arrow,
Hellboy (which is coming soon), Shi, etc... Don’t settle for sub
par screenplays, and cheap special effects.
Jef
side note: There was some strange connection with this movie and the HBO series “The Sopranos”… Robert Iler played a bully – who is RJ, Joe Pantoliano played a newspaper reporter – who was Ralphie, Jon Favreau was the lawyer – who had a guest appearance on The Sopranos.
Daredevil - Elektra
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Daredevil
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