Daredevil

Release Date: February 14, 2003

Watch Date: September 7 – September 8, 2023

“Daredevil, the blind vigilante hero with hyperacute senses, brings powerful crime lord Kingpin to justice and quashes his assassin Bullseye for murdering love interest Elektra.”

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    I’ve heard good things about the television show, so it’s a good thing Daredevil got a second chance at life because this isn’t it.

    I’ve also heard okay things about Ben Affleck as Batman, I’ve never seen him in the role so I can’t comment on that really either, but I’m glad he got a second chance as vigilante in a crime ridden metropolis, because this isn’t it either.

    This movie is…it’s boring. A superhero movie shouldn’t be boring.

    We’ve once again gone for a stoic superhero who displays no emotions and is tragically alone due to his calling, until a gorgeous girl who smells nice shows up in his life. For her, he will ignore crime. I don’t know why, they have no chemistry and probably one of the dullest sex scenes in cinematic history, but that’s his one true love, so lay off the guy.

    Everything is very dreary, and the plot doesn’t really decide to show up until about the last third of the movie, and it’s not even that good of a plot, so it probably could have been avoided for the whole film and I would have been just as interested – that is to say not at all.

    The CGI in the penultimate battle is…terrible. Like bad videogame back in the early 2000s terrible, not just bad for now. The transitions between reality and CGI are so immediately obvious that it throws you out of the film completely, and on top of that the battle is short and boring. When your whole thing is a guy who throws things well, they don’t say with a lot of force but I guess so since he made a blunted stick go through a man’s chest from halfway across the street, and the whole thing about your hero is that because of his super senses he can dodge things well…it’s not gonna be that interesting.

    Also, poor Bullseye, he insisted he get a costume and all that Kingpin gave him was a new coat. That’s not a costume – not that I know why the hardened assassin would suddenly want one. That’s a coat. It’s a nice coat. But it’s a coat.

    It is at this point I’d like to remind you that Daredevil is not supposed to have any superhuman powers, but somehow being blind made him physically stronger. That still doesn’t mean he should be able to make the jumps that he often does in this film, whether or not he fights well. Bob and I consistently nudged each other throughout this film to point out that Daredevil does not have superpowers after the man demonstrated what was definitely a super power.

    There is, of course, one other superhero in this film, Elektra. I say she’s in it, but she’s not. She’s a cardboard cut out love interest for Daredevil who makes out with him a couple of times, decides to get revenge, has most of her scenes under (and I do mean under because the music is so loud) a kick ass Evanescence score, and then promptly dies five minutes after her superhero reveal. I’d like to take this moment to point out that she does get her own movie a few years down the line, but how anyone could have been inspired by her appearance in this film to make that happen is anyone’s guess. Plus, she fights with her hair down in perfect curls. This isn’t female empowerment, it’s a gross man’s sexual fantasy, and it makes me realize how far future female superheroes will come in the MCU. Elektra was stabbed through the chest so that they could run, I suppose.

    The only good part of this entire movie is Kingpin, and he’s not even in it long enough! I mean, they don’t really do anything interesting with Kingpin, but I think the actor did a fantastic job with the limited amount he was given, and he manages to be the only character in the entire film that’s not completely flat. It’s too bad he won’t be the Kingpin in the future, since the actor passed away, because that would have been a wonderful casting moving forward.

    This movie is not on Disney+ so if you’re trying to just watch the MCU that is confined to that space, lucky you, you get to avoid this snoozefest. But if you’re like Bob and I, and you’re trying to watch everything…the series is better by all accounts. Make that your canon Daredevil and avoid this one for as long as possible.