Daredevil
Daredevil is a film about a blind man who has superhuman abilities that allow him to see. This cute little fact has led to many, many cheap jokes at the character’s expense. I shan’t make any, however, not because I have any resistance for making bad jokes, but because it is in the portrayal of the abilities of Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck) that the film truly succeeds.
The special effect sequences that show Murdock detecting, by use of a ‘radar sense’, an incredibly detailed picture of the landscape around him — not just what a normal man could see — are very nicely done. In particular, the sequence where he forms the lovely Elektra’s (Jennifer Garner) face from the noise of raindrops is moving and beautiful — as well as setting up the rain concept for later.
Ben Affleck turns in an excellent performance as Murdock, showing a vulnerable, and ever so slightly psychotic, hero. Though the decision to have the Daredevil give a gruff whisper for some of his lines was a poor one — it lends a rather cartoony atmosphere to the scene where we see Murdock’s initial bad-guy arse-whupping. Which ends up being the film’s biggest problem.
There’s a way to balance cartoony-ness and brutality. I’m fairly sure Tim Burton’s Batman did it, thought it’s been a while since I saw it. Daredevil doesn’t. For every bloody, convincingly disturbing fight, we have things like a slow pan up on the Kingpin, standing at his window like he was waiting for the camera to get to his face. For every pill Murdock pops to stay in the game, we have an amusing distraction from Bullseye (Colin Farrell). Ultimately the film has little consistency of tone, and it suffers for it.
Some of the plot points are a little confusing too. Murdock gets stabbed in the shoulder one night, and is so incapacitated that he can’t manage to save someone very dear to him. Even when she has her throat cut and her own weapon stuck through her belly, she crawls over to him, rather than vice versa. This just seems rude and lazy of the Daredevil, when you consider that that night, he goes on to defeat both her assassin and the brutal crime boss who ordered the kill. Other than this, the action is generally handled quite well. All the major players are shown on a fairly even playing field, which gives a nice tension to the fight scenes that many films lack. Although Matt’s fatal weakness — loud noise — seems just a little to much of a weakness for him to consider seriously pursuing his crime fighting career. The moment SonicMan or BoomGirl turn up, he’s toast.
Another major drawback the film has is Matt’s genesis story. From Superman to Spider-Man, the story of how the hero(es) got their powers seems mandatory. And thus is at least 30 minutes of screen time taken up. Also, so as to make that time seem less of a waste, a lame plot thread is added linking the villain of the piece to some formative moment in the child hero’s life. I would have vastly preferred, in Daredevil‘s case, to skip that whole bit, and have a more complex plot than “Hey, I’m gonna kill that guy and his kid… ooh, who’s that guy in red leather?”. It’s not like Murdock’s abilities make any more sense when you’re told that a vat of radioactive material exploded in his face. That’d explain death, but not supersonar enhancements.
Overall, Daredevil manages far more moral complexity than it’s recent predecessor, Spider-Man, but doesn’t seem to have remembered to bring the rest of the film in line with this depth. The result is a film that will be enjoyed by comic buffs, but dismissed as stupid by many. Which is less than it deserves… but not by much.
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