Movie Journals |
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Daredevil
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Daredevil The first ten minutes of Daredevil (102 minutes) were interesting and had my attention. The main character had me caring about him and concerned for his well being. Initially, the scene opens with a battered and beaten hero dropping to the floor of a church. Starting with the end seems to be an often used trick of the trade. Then, the scenes change to that of Daredevil as a boy and explain his backstory. Perhaps too much. My professional movie watching opinion is that many comic book hero movies don’t do well because they try to do too much. They try to tell the hero’s entire story rather than just the story of the movie. I have learned from this class that backstory is necessary, but it is not necessary to show it. If the movies would just pick up somewhere in the life of the hero, as another installment of the hero’s adventures, the movies would probably improve dramatically. Get it? Dramatically? Anyway, not long after my first 10 minutes of enjoying the movie I began to check my watch to see how much more I would have to endure. Other than the movie lacking premise, the biggest derailment of this train is that the main character has no arc. I decided that Plot Point I occurs at 35 minutes into the film when the main character sniffs out, er uh, meets Elektra. Really the only change this brings about is that now the character supposedly has a love interest that he’s really interested in. Plot Point II, however, was a little trickier because by the end of Act II, the character doesn’t really change—at all. I assume the second act point is when Bull’s Eye kills Elektra (78 minutes), but I would not argue that to the death because what happens after she’s dead, probably would have happened anyway. The movie makers even try to compensate for the lack of character growth by forcing the issue when Daredevil says, “I set out to change the city, but with Elektra’s help, I changed myself instead.” When? Where? I must have missed it! Other than viewing Daredevil as an interesting example of how closely premise and character arc are related and what goes wrong when they’re missing, its lack of much of anything worthwhile (even the action scenes are lacking) makes it a movie to miss. Karen Walker 13 October 2003 |