Top-notch superhero movie. The dark tone perfectly captured the feel of Frank Miller’s Daredevil. The bits that humanized Murdock (scars, painkillers, flirting/fighting in the park, frightening a little boy) gave the character a touch more depth than most movie superheroes.
I wish they had left the Kingpin-Daredevil showdown for another movie. They crammed too much into one film, just as “Batman Returns” did. I was, however, happy with the way the showdown was handled. In most other movies, there would have been no tension about his final decision. In this one, Daredevil was close enough to “the bad guy” that I did not know what would happen.
We’ve really had a terrific streak of comic book movies in recent years. “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” looked great and nicely captured the tone of their source material. I’d say they get the “feel” better than any similar movie since “Superman.”
I can point out some flaws with “Daredevil” (Kingpin had far too little to do, and Elektra’s vendetta came and went too quickly) but I think it was an excellent adaptation that managed to add a few new wrinkles to the genre.
I just saw it and it was okay. I’ve never read any comics so I had no previous assumptions.
[SPOILER]The whole “vigilant lawyer” thing bugged me. I realize it’s a staple of comic books, but in Spider-man, at least the hero went after people who were caught in the act. He didn’t just go after people he decided were lying in court. (I guess he had some sort of built in lie detector?) Yes, rapists are evil, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to go out and push them under trains. What if you make a mistake? Fighting the dragon, and all that.
Then there was the guilt thing. “I’m not the bad guy… I’m not.” So he goes out and kills some bad guys, and that makes it all better? He just goes on with business as usual at the end of the movie!
But the part that really bugged me is when the reporter was deleting the article with “Delete” and it erased the letters to the right of the cursor… [/SPOILER]
The Extraordinary Gentlemen trailor looked interesting. It wasn’t very helpful in regard to the actual plot though. Is it based on some sort of comic book too?
Yup LEG is writen by Alan Moore who along with Frank Miller (who wrote the DD arch the movie was based) are regaurd as the two best wrtiers in Comic books today
I haven’t heard Frank Miller spoken of in revered tones in some time. DK2 wasn’t all that, I’m given to understand.
Ask comic fen these days who the best writers are and you’ll get Moore for sure, but after that it’s split between Grant Morrison, Kevin Smith, Judd Winick, Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis depending on who you talk to.
To drag the thread vaguely back on topic; Matt Murdock gets more pussy with that white stick routine than most of us could wish for. It’s shameful, him pretending to be blind to get chicks.
Classy. I don’t understand the notion that Garner is drop-dead gorgeous that seems to be going around these days; to me she’s just a slighly less angular version of Hilary Swank. But still, calling her “talentless” and “ugly” is just juvenile.
2 for 2. The braille was there for thematic effect only; it wasn’t intended to be read. It’s clear that they were more concerned about having it line up with the text.
Yeah, it’s odd that a movie told from the perspective of a blind man as its protagonist would play up sound effects and make the visuals flickery and confusing. That was kind of the point of the first fight scene; DD has an advantage because he doesn’t need to be able to see what’s going on.
Anyway, it was nice to “see” a movie where the sound designers get to show off instead of just the visual effects guys. And good casting for the villains, too; Colin Ferrell is the obvious standout, and he did a good job of showing Bullseye as being a psychotic. I think his intro scene was the best, good choice of music. But Michael Clarke Duncan was appropriately bad-ass as the Kingpin, too – he did the best he could with what material he had.
So I’ve never read Daredevil (I’ve always been a DC guy) so I can’t comment on the comic-to-movie translation, but I thought the movie was a lot better than I’d expected. Pretty good, even. I just hope nobody’s expecting it to be a big franchise, because it’s always going to pale in comparison to stuff like Spider-man and X-Men and Batman, even if it didn’t have the whole “based on a comic book” stigma attached to it. I read a negative review of it, and the only thing I agreed with was the comment “There’s a reason that Daredevil has never been as big a name as the other heroes.”
And I just remembered: I saw an interview with Ben Affleck, and before I could change the channel he said that he and the director decided he’d grow his hair out to look like the spiky-haired heroes from anime. Not only was that a bad idea even if it had worked, but it didn’t come across like that at all. Instead, it just looked like the old “blind guy can’t tell if his hair’s messed up.”
You must use a PC! On a PC, the Delete key erases characters to the right of the cursor, and the Backspace key erases characters to the left. On a Mac, the Delete key erases characters to the LEFT of the cursor!
But I must admit, on neither a PC or Mac keyboard (that I’ve ever seen) is there a “PRINT” key, let alone right next to the Delete key. Or is there… I’m on a PC keyboard now…
Anyways, add my vote to the positive reviews. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but I liked it. I agree with those who’ve complained that there are too many characters within too short a time, and a a result what could have been excellent sequences got short shrift (like DD vs. Kingpin).
I will also add in another complaint: where did these other characters come off with “super powers?” I admit I never read much Daredevil (as a kid, I preferred DC because all issues had self-contained stories. Marvel always had continuing story arcs and that annoyed me as an occaisional reader. But of the Marvel comics, I kind of liked Daredevil and Iron Man the best).
So I don’t know if this is backed up or explained in the comic book, but as a stand-alone movie, they certainly expained Daredevil’d powers, so there are no surprises that he does the things he does (with the exception of having super healing abilities - that was never addressed, and that whole bit of him being “injured” at the end but miraculously gaining back all his abilities seemed unbased in the movie facts). But Bullseye is presented as being a super aim with anything, that’s all. I’ll even go along with the added skills in 'pickpocketing" DD’s billyclub and such, 'cause that seemed to fit… but where does he get the ability to leap around like DD during those fight scenes? Same with Elektra; she is presented as being super-skilled in the martial arts, so I can easily buy the fighting abilities she demonstrates. But how is she able to leap through the air and do the other stunts during that fight scene with DD? These things just did not seem to fit in for me.
Overall though, I did like the look and feel of the film. I thought Affleck was just fine. I hope they do come up with some clever sequels.
I’m with Evil Death on this thing, there’s no excuse for not having correct braille up there. I cannot accept that audiences would be turned off by the correct braille. It’s the same thing as having ‘foreign language’ dialogue that isn’t correct. Nobody may notice, but it’s still just sloppy, IMHO.
I liked the movie, not as much as Spiderman, but it was a fun 90min. A couple of things struck me as wrong, not REALLY spoilers, but what the heck.Such as him hearing the sniper rifle bullet before it struck, I THINK those bullets are supersonic. I also thought the first ‘fight’ scene with Elektra was just bizarre. Come to think of it, the fact that his friend thought he’d be tricked by a mustard container… the honey containers are bear shaped, fool!
I saw it, and can say that it does nothing to displace “Batman & Robin” as the “worst comic book film ever.” The characters never seemed to achieve any kind of dimensionality, and the script seemed really rushed. The thing that sold me on Spider-Man was the joy and wonderment on Tobey Maguire’s face as he began exploring his new powers. There was nothing similar in Daredevil to sell me on the character.
Ben Affleck struck me pretty much as Ben Affleck does in all his roles. He can do slick and arrogant quite well, but when it comes to actual pathos, he’s very wooden. He wasn’t a terrible choice for the role, but wasn’t a great one either.
The other characters had potential to be interesting, but I’d like to have seen a more developed story. It’s not that any of them were boring, but rather that they weren’t given a whole lot to do.
Did anybody translate the braille that was up there? I would have tried to check it for authenticity, but I remembered that there are certain braille symbols that stand for multiple letters, like ER or THE, and since I didn’t know what to look for, it would have been difficult.
Cheesesteak, about your spoiler complaint:I don’t think that DD was supposed to be hearing that gun being fired, since it wasn’t presented in sonar-vision. However, I could be remembering wrong, since it all happened so fast. And yeah, his friend was a fool. That was the point.
In fact, in many ways I thought Daredevil was the movie I had hoped Batman would be, back before Batman was released.
I love Tim Burton’s visuals, but the dialogue in Batman was terrible, and the movie had too many campy elements for my taste.
Daredevil, on the other hand, plays it straight, and gives us a gothic, brooding meditation on the price of vengeance. (Not to say that the movie is humorless; there are several moments of comic relief.) It’s not a great movie, but it’s a damn good one. Give it a B++. (I’d rate it ahead of Batman, and roughly even with X-Men and Spider-Man. I will say that it helps your enjoyment of the movie to have some familiarity with the material.)
A question: Why is it that Comic Book Guys[sup]TM[/sup] always seem so anxious to rip apart comic book movies? The nit-picking in this thread calls to mind the geeks who hated Star Wars because you could hear the explosions in space. It’s a movie fer cryin’ out loud.
Tell me: when you read a comic book, do you critique it for “believeability”? (snicker)
Tanaqui wrote:Then there was the guilt thing. “I’m not the bad guy… I’m not.” So he goes out and kills some bad guys, and that makes it all better? He just goes on with business as usual at the end of the movie!
I think you may have missed something…
[spoiler]DD was a vigilante all through most of the movie. In his heart, though, he knows there’s something wrong with this. When he announces “I’m not the bad guy,” it feels like he’s trying to convince himself. (He doth protest too much, IOW.) Then at the very end of the movie, he experiences an epiphany. Given the opportunity to kill Kingpin, he pointedly doesn’t. He leaves him for the justice system to handle.
I saw it and enjoyed it. Like someone (Holoise?) said above. Jennifer Garner wasn’t in it enough.
I guess it’s just me, but I don’t particularly care if a movie like this is “realistic”. I went to be entertained, and I was entertained. My litmus test of a good move is “would I see it again”, and the answer is: Yes, I would definately see it again.
[/SPOILER]