Daredevil [Archive] - FilmLeaf

Johann

05-07-2004, 05:53 AM

Finally saw Daredevil tonight- I rented it as opposed to buying it after reading reviews on the imdb.

The Good: It's true to the comics and the costume is awesome. (all costumes are awesome in this movie).
Colin Farrell's introduction is beautiful: he's throwing darts sideways while drinking beer (hitting bullseyes of course) while the Irish rap group House of Pain blares over the bar. Great stuff.

The Bad: the actors. Michael Clarke Duncan and Joe Pantoliano are the only decent performers in this flick. Yeah, Farrell is OK, I guess, but Jennifer Garner annoyed me and Ben was just lifeless. Absolutely lifeless.

The Ugly: scenes that were just useless, like the "mustard in my coffee, can I have some honey" scene, the Elektra training in the loft scene, the love/sex scene, and just the plodding pace of most scenes had me almost yawning.
The first big action sequence is straight out of Desperado!
The only difference was the pool tables that were on fire.

The cameos are nice, but Frank Miller and Stan Lee deserved a better movie. Yes, it was dark, it had the Batman vibe happening, it had the Crow vibe happening, but the acting seemed to be very.....I don't know, EMPTY, VACANT.

The cinematography was good (same guy who shot The Fast and The Furious) but if you look really close, you'll see that this film is 95% CGI. (Gotta be, cuz Affleck ain't no acrobat!)

I recommend it to comic book fans, but that's it. Daredevil should be a much more poetic film. I'm hoping Johnson's next comic book film will be a better showing: Ghost Rider

Johann

08-07-2005, 03:31 PM

My roommate has the original 2-DVD set and I thought I'd watch it again.

While my feelings as above are pretty much the same, I do have some changes to make.

Mark Steven Johnson deserves much respect for a few reasons.
He's been a fan of the Daredevil comics since he was 8 years old, and he lived and breathed this character when writing it.

He knows the Daredevil universe inside out, and I think that's a very important quality to have in a director: KNOW your subject. Know your story. Johnson does in spades. This is revealed in the special features. He fought hard to make this movie. He was originally just a writer. Because he was an unknown and Chris Columbus was the man the studios had in mind to direct, he faced a tough haul to make them believe that he was the man to make the movie.

But make it he did, and my feelings about it are a little more respectful. The film still falls short of the great comic book classic it should have been but it's an excellent attempt.

The DVD features:

BEYOND HELL'S KITCHEN: Making Daredevil- it's great to learn the story of the film rights (Marvel being near bankruptcy, Fox buying the rights, the rights expiring, Disney looking into it etc..) and how the whole thing came together. The parts about making the costume were fascinating to me because I love the way they did the costume. Ben had his whole body made into a plaster cast. James Acheson designed a perfect costume for the character- a bloodred leather "motorcycle" bodysuit.
High marks for nailing the costume, Mr. Johnson.

Daredevil: from the comic to the big screen- With Jen Garner hosting and loud WWE/Limp Bizkit crappy music, this little "access hollywood"-style program left me cold. We learn what may be the reason why the movie doesn't have lasting, classic undertones: Mark S. Johnson: "I never had specific actors in mind for these roles. I couldn't help myself. I would always just think of Matt Murdock as the way he was drawn."

Right.

The Men Without Fear: Creating Daredevil- hands down the best part of the whole DVD. We got the heavyweights baby:

Stan Lee
Frank Miller (the architect behind Daredevil's resurrection in the late 70's)
John Romita Sr.
John Romita Jr.
Gene Colan
Joe Quesada
Kevin Smith

These are the keepers of the Daredevil flame. We get great insights into the characters' psyche and his most important comic book appearances.

Stan Lee says he hates the fact that Frank Miller is more intense than him. Stan explains how he came to create Daredevil with Bill Everett, and how he was worried that the comic would be ill-received by blind people.

John Romita Sr. is a comics legend, and his run on Daredevil is considered classic. He only worked on the book for 6 months (Stan was grooming him for Spiderman) and he says quite plainly that DD is the best character Marvel has.

His son, John Jr., grew up watching his Dad draw the icons of Marvel and he couldn't help but be swept up in the comics medium. He's as good or better than his old man (you decide) and his artwork on the 144 page "The Man without Fear" with Miller is what he considers "more fun and more rewarding than anything I've ever done. The Punisher running a close second. Daredevil is a graceful character."

Frank Miller explains with high intelligence and acute truth what comic book characters mean and represent: "Comic books have got a very strange self-esteem issue. What I'm after when I draw my pictures is I'm after your guts. I want you to feel something. I love beauty, I don't care about pretty. He explains that he's all about evocation, that Daredevil was the "poor-man's Spiderman" when he sunk his teeth into the character, creating Elektra and "bringing whiskey to the playground."
I love him.

Kevin Smith loses yet more stock with me. He's almost catatonic. He has this detachment that is hard to ignore. For a guy who's found himself respected as a filmmaker and highly sought out as a comics writer he sure looks like he'd rather be anywhere else.
Is there any joy in it for ya, Kev?

I'm starting to hate you because in my low-rent, common-man eyes you wake up in the castle every fucking day my friend.
You live in the ivory towers of fanboy dreams.
Have you finished that damn Bullseye/Target series yet?
Fucker!

Moving Through Space: A Day with Tom Sullivan- Mr. Sullivan has been blind since birth, and we get an 8 minute look into one of his days. He was the "sight-impaired consultant" on the movie, and because Mark Johnson was so interested in finding out how blind people live their lives (to bring more realism to the movie) Johnson gets more kudos. Ben Affleck worked close with Tom, who gave him the inside scoop on all the things that blind people deal with routinely. Tom golfs (?), plays piano, he works out, he says there are 15 different types of waves that roll in on the beach near his home (he's heard them), and he says there are 11 types of textures of sand on a beach. Point being?
The dude's other senses are more acute as a result of his lack of sight.

I now fully appreciate what they did to make this movie.
While it still doesn't blow me away, I like it now.

The mere fact that a film version of Matt Murdock's story exists and that it's not cheesy or horrifically lame (face it, this movie could've sucked way worse) we should be *a little bit* happy.