Daredevil (2003)

Ben Affleck as "Matt Murdock/Daredevil"
Jennifer Garner as "Elektra Natchios"
Michael Clarke Duncan as "Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin"
Colin Farrell as "Bullseye"
Jon Favreau as "Foggy Nelson"
Joe Pantoliano as "Ben Urich"

Based on characters created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett
Written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson

The way the rest of the critics have been fawning over this movie, you'd think it was the greatest comic book adaptation since Tim Burton's Batman. Quite frankly, I wasn't as impressed. Daredevil is a decent movie with a great cast, but writer/director Mark Steven Johnson suffers from trying to stuff years of material into 114 minutes of film.

This is what I term "the Akira syndrome." The animated film Akira is also based on a huge comic book serial of the same name, and its creator, Katushiro Otomo, tried to cram thousands of pages of story into one feature film. The results were a little less than coherent at times, but at the very least, it was an engaging, visually stunning picture. With Daredevil, Johnson had over forty years of stories from which he could choose to adapt, and understandably, he selected the "Elektra Saga." The "Elektra Saga" is one of the all-time classic stories in comic books, written by Frank Miller, who revolutionized the Daredevil character as he did with Batman some years later.

However, Johnson also retells Daredevil's origin in the beginning of the film (a must, I'll admit, as most non-comic book fans don't know very much about Daredevil), which consumes quite a bit of time. It is an entertaining sequence, as we see young Matt Murdock's transition from helpless child to superhero after he is blinded by hazardous chemicals (or something to that effect) in an accident. The accident also enhances his other senses, and he is able to use his augmented hearing to "see" using sound (what the comics term his "radar sense"). Matt's father, an aging prizefighter on the comeback trail, is murdered by gangsters, and young Matt, like a certain pointy-eared hero, pledges his life to seek justice for the downtrodden.

What separates Matt from other superheroes is that he also fights the good fight in the courtroom as an attorney. By night, however, he prowls the rooftops of his New York neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen, as the vigilante called Daredevil.

After this setup, Johnson heads straight into the two areas of the story that interest him the most. First, he shows just how brutal Daredevil's world is with a violent fight scene and shots of Murdock popping Vicodin like Tic-Tacs and pulling out loose teeth in the shower while getting shots of his heavily scarred back. I suppose his message is that despite the special powers, Daredevil is still all too human, capable of getting the crap beaten out of him on a bad day.

The other facet of the story that holds Johnson's interest is Murdock's romance with Elektra Natchios, the daughter of billionaire Nikolas Natchios. Matt and Elektra fall for each other rather quickly (though it takes an extended and less than convincing fight scene to get them together), but are torn apart when a tragic event alters their lives, forcing Elektra to reevaluate her own life.

Mark Steven Johnson seems absorbed by Matt and Elektra's story, so much so that he neglects to truly develop Daredevil and Kingpin's rivalry. As a result of this, their inevitable fight scene seems more obligatory than any other climactic battle in a comic book movie (and trust me, I've seen my share). More so, by rushing the story along in order to copy the climax straight from the end of Daredevil #181 (one of many shots Johnson literally--and liberally--swipes from the comics), he deprives the viewer of any chance to really get emotionally involved with the characters.

Thankfully, there is such a great cast assembled that I felt something for at least a few of these characters. Ben Affleck was a terrific choice to play Matt Murdock, something I have been saying from the beginning. Many have, and will continue to argue that he doesn't look like the traditional superhero. My response to that is "yes and no." While he pulls off the superhero bit well enough, he also possesses the vulnerability to carry the role of Matt Murdock. He is complemented by one of the most beautiful women currently drawing breath, Jennifer Garner of TV's "Alias," as his ill-fated love, Elektra. Like Affleck, Garner can play the soft, feminine romantic lead just as well as she can play a tough-as-nails angel of death. Here, she gets to play both, and she does so wonderfully.

As for the villains, we have Michael Clarke Duncan of The Green Mile and The Whole Nine Yards as the Kingpin. Duncan's casting was even more controversial than Affleck's, as the comic book Kingpin is white. However, it was argued that no one has the size and the skill to play the Kingpin more than Duncan. His performance here is suitable proof, as his presence alone is menacing enough. Unfortunately, his screen time is scant compared to Affleck, Garner, and Colin Farrell.

Farrell (Minority Report, The Recruit) steals the show as the psychotic assassin Bullseye, who can turn anything that comes to hand, be it a paper clip, a pencil, or even a peanut, into a deadly weapon. As Bullseye, Farrell is allowed to run free and it shows. He chews through scenery every time he is onscreen, and he handles his action scenes very nicely. He is hilarious and chilling all at the same time, and his performance is my favorite of the film.

While the cast is solid, the story, as I mentioned already, suffers. However, many of the fight scenes also suffer from excessively fast and jerky editing. Coupled with the literal darkness of this film, it is really hard to follow the first several fights. This became so bad, I began to have flashbacks from the dreadful final battle in Pootie Tang, one of my least favorite movies of all time. That movie had the worst editing in a fight scene, ever. Matt and Elektra's initial fight scene, more of a playful flirtation, suffers from unconvincing, almost cheesy wirework. It doesn't resemble a fight as much as it looks like a dance. I don't know if that was the point or not, but it wasn't very good. The special effects weren't too remarkable either. The overabundance of wire fu and computer graphics reeked of "Matrix knockoff."

However, there is one effect that was so original and so well used that it stole the film, even more so than Colin Farrell's performance. Daredevil's aforementioned "radar sense" was one of the best special effects I've scene in a long time. As I said previously, his heightened hearing is also a powerful imagine tool, allowing him to "see" the outlines of an object's surface. The best example of this is in what I call the "rainfall scene," when the sound of raindrops hitting Elektra's face allows Matt to see her features for the first time. It's a truly powerful scene.

While I don't believe it's the best comic book film ever made, or even better than Spider-Man, I still think Daredevil is a decent film worth seeing at least once. I would have enjoyed it more seeing the story stretched across two or more movies, but I found it entertaining nonetheless, just not quite worth all of the hype. It's good, but somewhere short of fantastic.