Daredevil

Released 2003
Stars Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Farrell, Jon Favreau, Joe Pantoliano, David Keith, Scott Terra
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

Ben Affleck is Matt Murdock, a Marvel Comics hero who's a lawyer by day but fights the bad guys at night to avenge the murder of his father, a boxer. But what sets Matt apart from most superheroes isn't his back story; it's his handicap. Matt is blind, the result of a childhood accident that may have removed his ability to see but gifted him with heightened senses of touch, taste, hearing and smell.

Summary from www.netflix.com

I rented this movie as a lark, but I'm glad I did. It had been so universally panned that I was expecting it to be a real stinker, but I really liked it. I didn't read the Daredevil comics as a kid so I didn't know much about him other than he was blind, but he's a rather interesting hero. He's very similar to Batman, both of whom became vigilantes after their parents were killed, but Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck) has an interesting twist. He's a lawyer by day and judge and executioner by night. That's an interesting idea, because lawyers swear to use the law to uphold justice while vigilantes ignore the law to enforce their personal sense of justice. I was quite surprised that he had no qualms about killing, because you don't see that in superheroes. They believe in justice and the sanctity of life above all else, but not Daredevil.

There are other similarities between Daredevil and Batman, but Daredevil is more tortured than Bruce Wayne. The movie tries to bring this out, but unfortunately it doesn't do it well. The biggest problem is Ben Affleck cannot play tortured. He was a poor choice for this role because of that, and that may be the reason people couldn't connect to the movie. The kid who played young Matt, Scott Terra, did a much better job than Ben, and it's his segment at the beginning of the film that hooked me. He and David Keith were excellent, and their backstory segment was poignant and moving. It was deeper than anything I've seen in a comic-based movie so far (I haven't seen "The Hulk" yet, though).

I really enjoyed this movie. I thought the visuals were outstanding, the soundtrack was great, Jennifer Garner and Colin Farrell were fantastic, the story was dark and interesting (I don't know any other superheroes who are hooked on painkillers), however the ending was weak. They tried to show Matt's transformation from murderous vigilante to "the good guy," but it's far too contrived. He goes directly from killing Bullseye to his father's killer, but somewhere in that span of a half hour he changes. I would have ended the movie after Bullseye and left Kingpin for the sequel. It would have been much stronger, but it's still a very good flick. --Bill Alward, September 1, 2003