Daredevil (Widescreen Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Tons of fanboy extras ~ A little less movie.
Review: Eye-popping visual effects, a great score...and...Jennifer Garner zipping around the screen in tight clothes...that sums up the high points of Daredevil. While not as coma inducing as Spiderman (a film that I felt was way overhyped and unjustly overpraised) Daredevil falls woefully behind other Marvel films. While Ben Affleck is adequate as the masked superhero, he seems very uncomfortable in the role. I can't exactly say why, but it just appears that he is not "having fun" kicking [booty] and taking names. Colin Farrell is absolutely hilarious as Bullseye, actually stealing most of the scenes he is in. Jennifer Garner it appears was placed in the film for one reason and one reason only, eye-candy. Michael Clarke Duncan spends most of the movie handing out roses and ordering people to do all the dirty work. In fact, so inconsequential is the supporting cast in this movie that the screenwriters apparently felt that a literate script was not even needed. Visually, Daredevil is top notch. The fight scenes are kinetically charged with flying fists and jittery camera work, and the prog/rock soundtrack fits the mood very well. The "comic book" spirit is adequately portrayed, and I guess that is all that matters for this type of film. While not the best of the Marvel pool, Daredevil is still a guilty pleasure film. Popcorn cinema at its finest.

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie
Review: This was a great movie. The acting, plot, action, you name it was good. I heard they are making a sequel. I hope it is true.

Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing
Review: Too cheesy. How does going blind give you flea-like jumping abilities? All the characters (other than king-pin) were just boring and flat or over-acted. The fight scenes even looked completely fake and horrible. Suspending disbelief is not a possiblity in this movie. Not even for a second. I don't expect much realism out of a superhero movie, but yikes. This is just poo. Apparently in this world gravity is slightly lower (or occasionally non-existant...) than our Earth... Speed Racer was more realistic, maybe they'll turn that into a superhero movie next.

Rating:
Summary: The red spandex has got to go....
Review: Added to the numerious problems with this movie including bad casting and more script problems then you can count is the Daredevil costume. In the comics, Daredevil wears a dark red costume. Pretty much a spandex type costume that covers his whole body except his mouth. (Very similar to Batman). Well in this movie, it shows that most comic book costumes do not look realistic on film, no matter how hard you work on them. In the movie, the Daredevil costume looked pretty cheesy. It just looked like a huge red leather coat with a mask on top of it. Elektra;s costume was terrible. It must been been designed by someone who works on MTV music videos. and not something that someone who is supposed to be a deadly killer would wear. As for Bullseye, forget it. They did not give him a costume, I hate to have seen what it would have looked like if they had. So wither Marvel likes to admitt it or not, if they want their charaecters to look good on film, they will have to dump the comic book costumes and design something for them to wear on film, which would look good because it's a movie. That's the problem with adapting comics to film, you will sometimes find that many charecters will not work as movies, no matter how hard you work on them. Well Daredevil is one of them.

Rating:
Summary: bad
Review: SPOILER
though i never saw the daredevil comic book so i cannot relate it to the movie, this movie SUCKED. it was also kinda sad because of jennifer garner dying so early in the movie and all... ben affleck is a really bad actor, wow, boy oh boy does he suck. the only performance i liked here was colin farrell as bullseye. he's plays the villian very well. the plot wasn't too deep and i don't remember this being a summer popcorn movie... well, this movie was very bad and i don't recomend it to anybody.

Rating:
Summary: a decent comic book movie
Review: A Film by Mark Steven Johnson

Daredevil is based on the Marvel comic book character. Matt Murdoch (Ben Affleck) is a blind lawyer by day, but by night he is Daredevil, a vigilante crime fighter. The movie opens and traces the origins of who Matt is and how he became blind, and later how he became Daredevil. While this is not the main thrust of the story, it is essential storytelling to show us who this blind guy who runs around in a costume fighting bad guys is and how he got that way. When he was a child, Matt was blinded by some toxic chemicals (aren't they all). It took away his sight, but his other senses were heightened so much that Matt developed a sort of radar (sound waves reflecting off objects gives him a sense of where they are, much like bats). When his father was murdered, Matt dedicated his life to helping those who could not protect themselves. In the real world, this led to him becoming a lawyer and fighting for justice, but when the law does not work, he becomes justice himself and fights as Daredevil.

It is after this exposition that we get a chance to see what the story of the movie is going to be. We meet Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner) in a café and Matt is interested enough that he tries to follow her. Elektra doesn't want to be followed and they get into a little fight that is pretty much their courtship scene. It is very well done and it gives us clues on how they get interested in each other. While Elektra and Matt are getting more and more acquainted and friendly, the Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) has put out a hit on the life of Elektra's father (Erick Avari). Kingpin sends out Bullseye (Colin Farrell) to kill her father and in the process Bulleye ends up implicating Daredevil. Elektra doesn't know who Daredevil is yet, and now Daredevil wants to take down Kingpin. This is the major conflict of the movie.

Bullseye steals pretty much every scene he is in, but I don't feel that there is any exceptionally weak part of the movie. Daredevil (the movie) isn't great, but it is a solid comic book movie and despite the backlash against Ben Affleck he actually does a credible job both as Matt Murdock and Daredevil. Solid casting all the way through the movie. As a film, it was a little bit better than Spider-man. It isn't as good as X-Men, but this movie has been unfairly bashed. Like I said, it isn't great, but it is a decent little movie.

Rating:
Summary: It isn't Afflecks fault, but..
Review: Daredevil is the worst comic to screen adaption since Batman Forever. Lots of high dollar effects, disconnected characters that we can not connect with and a city that feels like a rehash Gotham from one of the Batman movies of the 90's. It's just that bad. Also the their's a upsetting mid-movie event (won't spoil it for those who must see this) that leaves little hope for the ending..

Rating:
Summary: A+
Review: Admittedly not as good as X2, but could you really expect that from a film that is based on one character alone? It does an excellent job of taking the Frank Miller storyline and streamlining it with a modern twist to give it flair. Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Dunkan, and Colin Ferrel all shine as their characters, which sort of makes me wish the movie was about Elektra instead of the somewhat miscast Ben Affleck. Of course, it did take Ben's interest to get the ball rolling on the movie, so one should be mindful of that favor.
The rock music track, slammed by so many, is actually poetic and upon reviewing or after acquiring a deeper knowledge of the DD universe is an amazingly well-done substitute for the back stories which would be expensive and probably boring to the average viewer. The special features are also great. I hope to see more discs like this!

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Adaptation of an Underrated Comic
Review: Teenager Matt Murdock is blinded in a freak accident. After the accident, Matt loses his sight, but his other senses become super-humanly enhanced. His father, played perfectly by David Keith, is an over-the-hill prize fighter with ties to the local mob. With his career back on track, Matt's father is ordered by the local crime boss to take a dive, but he refuses and goes on to win his fight - much to the crime boss's chagrin.

Matt pushes himself physically and mentally in honor of his father, and becomes a top attorney during the day, while taking advantage of his heightened senses to become the mysterious vigilante Daredevil during the darkness of night. Everything seems pretty normal (if you call leading THAT kind of double life normal!) until...

Matt meets and falls in love with Elektra Natchios (unconvincingly played by Jennifer Garner - although she sure looked tasty!), the daughter of a billionaire businessman. Elektra's father is murdered, which leads Matt and Elektra down a collision course with the city's Kingpin of Crime (Michael Clarke Duncan - man, was he convincing!) and his hired hitman, Bullseye (Colin Farell).

Once Matt meets Elektra, things move very quickly. Unfortunately, the film-makers had to develop the relationship between Matt and Elektra quickly, too. Unlike another dark "super hero" movie, The Crow, in which the writers and directors made the love Eric Draven had for his fiancee almost palatable, one never truly gains an understanding for how deeply Matt and Elektra are in love. The chemistry between Affleck and Garner just really isn't there, and the fact that the two of them are mediocre performers certainly didn't help matters much. This is too bad, because this story is about the love between Elektra and Matt as well as Daredevil vs. Bullseye and the Kingpin.

The movie's soundtrack rocks, and I was pleased to find that the DVD came with DTS sound in addition to the Dolby 5.1. Jon Favreau was a good Foggy Nelson, Joe Pantoliano was fine as Ben Urich, and Colin Farell made an interesting, albeit somewhat different from the comic book, Bullseye. Affleck did an OK job as Daredevil, and Garner, as mentioned previously, really is not a very talented performer. I'll give Affleck credit for not messing up Matt Murdock or Daredevil. I think the fact that he is a huge Daredevil fan helped out tremendously. His performance had a little more juice and depth than some of his previous stuff - like the over-rated Pearl Harbor fluff.

The best performance, hands down, was Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin. Yes, yes... I know that the comic book Kingpin was a literally larger than life white guy - a muscular version of Toughman Competition fighter Eric "Butterbean" Esch. But when you finish watching the movie, challenge yourself to find an actor who could have done a better job than Mr. Duncan. I tried to think of others that could have done the job, but I kept coming up empty. The people doing the casting nailed this one perfectly.

Marvel Comics has scored big with X-Men, Spider-man, X-Men 2, and Daredevil. Of the three that I have seen (I've missed X-Men 2), Daredevil fits in between Spider-man (that movie was GRRREAT!) and X-Men (Cool, but again, not enough time to develop characters). If you are unfamiliar with the comic book, this DVD is worth renting. If you are a fan of the comic book, do not hesitate to purchase the DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Daredevil
Review: I'll have to admit I've never heard of Daredevil untill the movie was released. It has lots of action sequences and the cast is subereb. Ben and Jennifer make a great duo. Then you throw Colin Farell and add Micheal Clarke Duncan as the kingpin. Micheal Clarke Duncan has always been one of my favorite actors because of his preformance in The Green Mile. I was suprised to see how much weight he had gained for this role. Plus the movie was awesome. If you have not yet bought it and you like comic books buy it. Do not buy the VHS. Only the DVD...