With Spiderman one of the biggest box-office movies of last year and 2003 promising both X2 and Ang Lee�s Hulk, comic-book heroes, it seems, are well and truly flavour of the month. So much so that this is fast becoming an impresive genre, the most notable members of which so far have been Tim Burton�s fantasy masterpiece Batman, and its first sequel Batman Returns. It is the gothic ambience of these successes that is aimed for and spectacularly missed here in the story of Matt Murdock (Affleck), the lawyer who as a child was blinded by radioactive chemicals (wouldn�t that really disfigure your face? Well, no, Affleck still looks rather handsome actually). He subsequently developed an augmentation of his remaining senses, a kind of sonic radar sense which instils hypersensitivity to his environment and facilitates quick reactions, superb balance, poise and strength, tools he now uses to deal out real justice to the criminal minds who operate in his home district, Hell�s Kitchen, N.Y., justice that he has fought for since the murder of his father when he was only young. The film follows these crime-fighting exploits and in particular his battle to defeat the evil mastermind Kingpin (Duncan).
Whereas previous efforts have recruited top directors of the likes of Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer, Daredevil however opts instead for unproven newcomer Mark Steven Johnson, and his inexperience shows in what is a predictable, highly unimaginative and forgettable popcorn movie. Sure the effects are impressive and the fight scenes elaborate, but there is an overriding sensation that you have seen this all before, and what�s more it was done better the first time around. Indeed it is an action super-hero movie by the numbers, far too clinical and formulaic: we get the story behind his powers, the love interest, the evil archenemy, and the investigative, suspicious journalist. This may well be the Marvel formula, and if so then it�s getting boring.
One of the main criticisms is that the lead character is as 2-dimensional as the comic that gave birth to him, due in no small part to Ben Affleck�s muted and seemingly passionless performance and the appallingly naff, wafer-thin, occasionally wince-inducing script. In fact about half way through I found myself thinking about the fact that I had some lamb in the fridge that needed eating. There are also plot-holes you could drive a batmobile through, principally, where the hell has everyone got their super-strengths from? Murdock was only blinded by radioactive waste and sure Affleck might be nicely beefed-up but I shouldn�t think that this can help him scale walls and jump gravity-defyingly large distances. Token pretty girl Elecktra (Garner) and Irish-psychotic Bullseye (Colin Farrell, who does at least brighten up the doom a little) also seem to posses super-human powers. How so? Where are these people from? Also, who makes the horned, not at all camp leather-suits for Murdock and how does he find time to put them on? And what in crikey Jesus is that enclosed flotation tank he�s sleeping in all about? Whoever came up with the phrase �suspend your disbelief�, would frankly be, er, well, in disbelief.
Aside from all this, the soundtrack is also highly derivative and insipid, Johnson opting for nu-metal trash and wishy-washy Dawson�s Creek style ballad tripe, tunes that are only inspiring and exciting to the easily excited MTV generation who the film is mainly aimed at, and who will probably love this film anyway despite its lack of soul and originality.
Far from the dark brilliance of Batman or the colourful cheesiness of Spiderman, it is a shame that this looks to be the beginning of a whole new franchise when it�s a concept that maybe had potential but from the start ironically failed to see it. |
