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Alexandra DuPont makes sweet eyes over DAREDEVIL!
Hey folks, Harry here and I get the oh so delicious honor of *sauntering to my keyboard with a come hither look of overheated exasperation* introducing Alexandra (pant pant) DuPont's DAREDEVIL review. Hearing a gal go pitter and patter over a subject so dear... it's enough to make one swoon and dreaming of long discussions about other such topics whilst swaying in a hammock beneath huneysuckle blossoms and sipping the mint flavored tea with Ms. DuPont... sigh... Here she is...
Alexandra DuPont's Daredevil FAQ
You've seen Daredevil?!
Between a dress fitting and registering for
assorted tchotchkes at
Austin Books , indeed I have.
Lucky bitch! How's that "X-Men 2" trailer they're
attaching to the film?
It is marvelous -- and, in keeping with the
post-2000 Marvel Studios philosophy, it's largely
character-focused. Judging from the fleeting shots in
the trailer, there's more and better action, some
cross-country travel, enough characters to fill a
mutant "Love Boat," and (get ready, Lickerish) a
front-and-center role for Hugh Jackman , who looks
like he may have many funny/cool moments in the film.
Personally, I loved (a) the bit where police tell
Logan to "drop the knives," and he rolls his eyes and
responds, "I can't," and (b) the trailer-closing
moment where Wolverine shoots his claws at a
not-at-all-frightened cat. Hated Famke's hair.
Huh. Well, what's the upshot on Daredevil?
You know, many of us TalkBackers are primed to hate
it.
[Sighs] May I ask why, as if I didn't know
already?
It stars Ben Affleck! And it's directed by that
Simon Birch guy!
Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I
thought Daredevil was actually pretty solid --
and the preview-screening rats around me seemed to
agree. Even worse, Affleck gives a nuanced, twitchy,
compelling performance that may be his best yet.
The movie's not perfect, mind you -- I'll get into
that in a minute -- but I'd argue that if
Daredevil had come out before Singer's
X-Men and Raimi's Spider-Man, people
would be heralding it as the first character-driven
Marvel superhero movie of quality. It's surprisingly
good.
Oh, give over! You liked Pearl Harbor!
Listen: A movie can be degrees of "good" or
degrees of "bad." I know that sounds painfully
obvious, but you wouldn't know it to read most
chat-room pundits these days. Everything "SUCKS!!!" or
"ROCKS!!!" even as old-school critical tools
(evaluations of craft, intent, passion, and
characterization, or even the simple appreciation of
kooky little eccentricities that can make a bad film
interesting) are discarded in favor of Eminem-style
online fronting -- a fiesta of exclamation points that
makes me wonder why a striving artist would even
bother trying to please us in the first place.
Take X-Men, for example: As a colleague and
I discussed in a recent
target='_blank'> review of the X-1.5 DVD,
the wire-work in that flick is Katherine-Hepburn shaky
and the storyline's largely pedestrian, but strong
characterizations push the steamboat over the peak.
Just so with Daredevil. Despite the fact that
the movie gets a lot of things exactly right, I
suspect it will polarize the online community -- but,
as Moriarty put it, if you can shrug off some of your
excess comics baggage, there's a mildly tragic, mildly
sexy, mildly nasty little piece of entertainment to be
had. And I'm sorry, but Daredevil's action
scenes are better than any of the set pieces in
the first X-Men.
What?s the story?
Oh, you know: Kid has rough childhood; kid gets
blinded by toxic waste; kid's remaining senses are
heightened to sonar-like intensity; kid loses father
to sadistic mobsters; kid grows up to become pro
bono lawyer by day and masked vigilante by night;
Kid hunts down local godfather even as he falls into a
tragic relationship with doomed, ass-kicking tycoon's
daughter. It's all boiled down (maybe too
boiled down) from the classic Frank Miller comics,
then wrapped around a very cool flashback frame story
that takes up literally two-thirds of the movie.
"Too boiled down"? What does that
mean?
Well, if Daredevil has one problem, it's
that some of it seems abbreviated -- particularly
w/r/t the Kingpin, who's barely developed as a
nemesis, even though he's nothing short of fascinating
in the comics. (Seriously: I'm thinking of one Miller/
Sienkiewicz yarn -- the title escapes me -- where
there's this whole irono-tragic subplot where the
Kingpin's trying to get medical treatment for his
dying wife and there's nothing he can do despite his
iron grip on the city and the whole thing plays out
like "The Godfather" with Lex Luthor as Vito. Anyway.)
I'm all for Michael Clarke Duncan as an actor --
Big Mike! Fook! Imagine the size of his flute!
-- but he comes off more as a big, cuddly guy in a
nice suit than he does as the Machiavelli of crime.
This tendency to distill -- to hurry the narrative
along at the expense of diving deep -- also hurts
Affleck's performance a bit. Mind you, I have almost
nothing but praise for Mr. Lopez in this film; he
gives a sensual, non-verbal performance, and he's
particularly good at conveying the physical pain that
results from his heightened senses. There's something
deeply touching about the moments when his main
squeeze Elektra (Jennifer Garner) removes his aviator
specs to look at his lazy, fogged-over eyes. Affleck
gets taken for granted a hell of a lot, I think,
because he's good-looking and radiates an essential
frat-boy normalcy that geeks hate -- but I simply
can't dismiss J-Bo or his deeply solid work in such
films as Dazed and Confused, Changing
Lanes, Good Will Hunting or even Chasing
Amy, which I sort of despise as cinema but love
for that one-minute monologue Ben gives in the car.
But back to the subject at hand: The only really
weak link in Affleck's work as Matt Murdock is that we
never really feel his great struggle with
vengeance; instead, because this movie needs to chug
along, we see a single, pull-no-punches scene where he
kills a rapist, we see a scene where he feels kind of
conflicted about his bloodlust, and we see a scene
where he declares himself "one of the good guys" and
turns his back on his cold-blooded ways. It's Cliff's
Notes Daredevil, I'm afraid -- and one wishes
that director Mark Steven Johnson had crawled around
in Matt Murdock's head for 10 more minutes (or
explored the by-the-numbers Murdock/Elektra romance
for 10 fewer minutes).
But you said you LIKED this movie!
Oh, very much. For one thing, it's often funny, and
the action scenes, though heavily edited, are
beautifully constructed. For another, there are many,
many visual nods to the classic Miller comics -- I
mean, anyone who can dismiss that spectacular opening
image of Daredevil curled around a cross, bleeding his
own private stigmata over the stained-glass saints
while dressed in a devil costume, is just plain
ungrateful.
For another, Jon Favreau is a hoot as "Foggy"
Nelson -- it's as if his character from "Swingers" has
subsisted on donuts for a year and mortgaged his soul
-- and Colin Farrell steals the film as an Irish
lunatic who can turn any household item into a weapon.
(Dear Lord, the man ricochets a peanut into an old
woman's mouth and chokes her to death just to shut her
up on an airliner!) Joe Pantoliano coasts through the
film on a sled of weary bald cool as reporter Ben
Urich, and the obligatory introductory scene between
Murdock and Elektra is a funny, ball-busting riff on
the whole "meeting cute" trope. (They had to
meet cute, folks; at least it's a courtship wrapped in
a playground fight scene.)
And then there's the efficient way the movie tells
its obligatory "origin story" and the way it conveys
Daredevil's sonar vision as a series of sound-strobed
negatives -- an effect that seems obvious but was
probably devilishly hard to come by. And stand up
straight, lads -- Jennifer Garner can wear those
leather hip-huggers. (This is a movie that seems
destined to drive many people to the gym out of sheer
embarrassment.)
Finally, I have to give some extra-special praise
to the team that designed the sound mix for this film;
they dunk the movie in just the sort of jarring,
eerie, overdubbed noise bath one imagines Daredevil's
every waking hour would sound like to him -- to the
degree that it?s a relief when Murdock retires to his
isolation tank for the evening. It's artful and maybe
a little unnerving; if you're noise-sensitive, you
might want to bring some ear plugs, but audiophiles
should love the workout. (That said, the rock songs
will date this film badly in a few years. But it could
be worse: The score could be by Michael Kamen.)
How's that CGI?
About as good as it was in Spider-Man. Take
that for what you will. As impressive as the advances
in integrating CG characters into real environments
have become -- the light-matching work in this movie
looked superb to my uneducated eyes -- the CG
Daredevil "stunt double" nevertheless moves in a
plasticine manner that makes him terribly easy to
spot. (It's kind of like spotting stunt doubles in
episodes of "The Fall Guy," only shinier.) But then,
this is a movie where people seem bounded by the laws
of physics until they suddenly leap 20 feet off a
building, soaring like cliff-divers in the Vomit
Comet; if you can buy that, you can probably handle a
leather-clad man moving like a character from Toy
Story in a handful of long shots.
That said, the comparisons to Spider-Man
don't end there. Daredevil, for all its
strengths, was the first of these new Marvel movies to
make me realize that the whole superhero genre is
straitjacketed by a dangerously rigid dramatic
structure: Tragedy followed by Angst followed by
Revenge followed by Acquired Nobility. It strikes me
that the sequels are where all these movies
will finally be set free to explore some dramatic
territory that doesn't involve howling about lost
father figures and unrequited love. If Daredevil
2 gets a green light -- and it might -- then we'll
be getting in to the whole "Elektra: Assassin"
territory and some juicy Kingpin stuff and I'll
totally be there with my eight bucks.
Warmest,
DuPont
P.S. Coming soon, barring disaster: an interview
with a much-beloved cartoonist.
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+ Expand All
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Literate and well-written and not fanboy rabid! Nice work DuPont.
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Sorry for that misfire. I am not that familiar with the comic, but so far many people seem to like it. Marvel is really experiencing a movie Reniassance. Can't wait for X Men 2 or Hulk. Dammit bring on the summer right now!
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I consider it a holiday when DuPont finally speaks out. It's all too rare... but truly cause for celebration. One of the best critics writing; why isn't this her full time job?
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After all this hype this Du Pont better not be ugly. Lol
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Yeah, I've got to give him props for breaking the stereotype with his Chuckie in Good Will Hunting. And I agree with Miss DuPont about the car scene in Chasing Amy--I don't suspect Affleck will be surpassing that monologue any time soon (who else would give him one?), nor will Kevin Smith. I haven't seen Changing Lanes yet, but perhaps on a slow rental night. Yeah Affleck might be taken for granted, but when you put his choices up next to Matt Damon's, it's pretty sad. Damon could have done a bunch of frat boy roles if he had wanted to, I'm sure. Directors Affleck has worked with: Bay, Frankenheimer, Madden, Newell, P.A. Robinson, Roos, and whoever the fuck did Forces of Nature. Damon: Spielberg, Minghella, Coppola, Liman, Van Sant, Thornton, Soderbergh, Redford, Dahl, Zwick. Looking over Damon's filmography, even though some films didn't turn out as good as hoped (Bagger Vance, Pretty Horses), some were underrated (Rounders, Rainmaker), and NONE were poor choices or missteps.
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Funny, in a cruel sort of way. Nice review BTW.
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Feb 13, 2003 5:40:07 AM CST
MINORITY REPORT should have gotten the effects nomination instea
by cash bailey
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M. DuPont, as usual, you are an elegant and mildly sweet delectation for the surfing reader or two. Terrific review, the only one I've elected to read regarding Daredevil, as I like to form my own opinions. But you...and your opinions...they are always such a moment of, how you say, chivalrement, n'est ce pas? Good work. Post in these here parts more often, oui? Intelligence is not often in evidence. As for you, Lazarus Long: say whuh?
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Harry, you need to invest more of your time getting reviewers that are privy to the moshun pichur viewin machina like Alexandra, who actually have recognizable voices in print that are enjoyable. You know...the Anti-Plant strain.
I now, despite my ugly, unreasonable critic shadow persona, want to go see this movie and be taken in by a Frank Miller mid-wiving of this rebirth of a Marvel Comics Classic hero. You have a lot of readers, stop settling for lame-ass studio plantatums and "novice" news hounds. In the words of the immortal Bill Hicks, "Yeah, we're evolving out East." -
DD can't be good. It just _CAN'T_ be good. Don't ask my why, I just have this strong feeling in my bladder, that DD can't be ANY good. And my bladder is always right.
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Each of these positive reviews on AICN have mentioned the same flaws: no characterization, superpowers that are a bit too super, dodgy CGI and Nu-metal. They sound major, since it's superhero-flick. But reviewers all praise it! So it must be good. But the trailers were quite shitty...But they all praise it? So it must be good. DD is turning out to be one of those flicks to measure the credibility of AICN, huh? I can't believe it is as good as everyone and their mom is saying. I HOPE it will be, but it just sounds too good to be true...Anyway, give us YOUR review before tomorrow, Harry. Don't wait what the other guys have to say...
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I thank you for it. It answered many questions without taking too much away. I think you make a great point about the formulaic nature of the "comic hero first installment movie". It is so very true. I hope Joey Pants and Favreau's appearences are long enough. They are great and it would be too bad to see them give 5-minute performances as barely tertiary characters. Sounds like they are pretty integral... at least in Favreau's case. I am very much looking forward to this movie. #### Hmm... I wonder if folks will be upset that Wolverine will stand more toward center stage again in X2. I vote "who cares?" since Jackman and Wolverine are great. #### I am increasingly irritated with potzers seemingly devoted to www.rottentomatoes.com. The site is useful only for broad-sweep comparative purposes. If I really want to see a movie, I'll see the movie. Maybe I'll READ the reviews, as opposed to glancing over a collection of highly edited quotations from the stock supply of reviewers. I still check rottentomatoes; I do believe it serves a purpose. But, if I really want to see a movie, it doesn't matter what that site's composited and averaged figures are. Screw it. So, if you really feel the need to check rottentomatoes concerning an upcoming movie, you probably didn't want to see the movie anyway. Shut up and see something else. --d
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Please tell me you've travelled to Hell's Kitchen and secured an interview with the father of all modern Hornhead mythology, Frank Miller.
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So, Affleck's worked with some so-called hacks. and Damon's worked with guys like Spielberg (guess you all got over him taking the guns out of E.T.).
Wonder how the box-office totals for Affleck's flicks stack up against those for Damon's films. Now, I'm not saying the almighty dollar is a good judge of a film's merit, I think George Lucas's last two films prove that not to be the case, but we all know more box office dollars for these superhero movies means more of 'em get made. Sure Spiderman wasn't perfect, but it was about as true to the comic as you could get and still make a mass-market product. And, yes X-Men suffered by cramming a comic-book soap opera into one movie, leaving little room for the character development played out in a monthly comic, but it's success means now we get more X-movies which will allow for some of that development. We've begged for years for these movies to get made, and now all we can do is bash them more and more as release dates get closer and closer. Geez...I hope for the best with each and every comic film released, and for the most part I'm happy with the results. They're never perfect, but would you rather have that crappy TV Captain America, and save your 8 bucks for "How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days"?
And what the Hell was wrong with "Chasing Amy" ? -
Please, dear God, tell me this is a hoax...http://www.fromjustintokelly.com/ Please someone tell me that the movie at the end of the link is NOT real!!!
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"Love and War" by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. It came out in the '80s and is still an excellent read! Good review, by the way....
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Got your name wrong....sorry.
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Since Ms. DuPont and I seem to agree more than not, my ticket money will be reflected in Monday's Boxofficemojo.com Daredevil report. I particularly like the last paragraph where she says what I have been thinking for a long time that X-Men 2, Spidey 2 and (hopefully) Daredevil 2 are going to be E ticket rides. The first films in a franchise, especially those of the "comic hero" genre, are always going to be saddled by necessity with giving some origin background to help explain everything that comes after. Give a competent film maker those 30-40 minutes back to expand the plot and flesh out the characters, and *that's* where the fun really begins. It would be great if there was a law that origin comic hero films can be no shorter then 2 1/2 hours long to fix this problem, but I don't see any Congressmen spending a lot of time on this any time soon considering the world situation as it is. I will enter the theater this weekend with (a) no Daredevil fanboy baggage, (b) no hardwired hate for Ben Lopez (his Kevin Smith film commentaries make me want to like him) and (c) the knowledge that the reviewer who's opinion I respect most on AICN has given it a thumbs up. Therefore
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Feb 13, 2003 12:12:19 PM CST
Is it my mistake, or does Miss duPont imply that she's soon to b
by radagast t brown
If so, congratulations, and thanks for yet another fine review. Here's hoping to see many more, even after what I assume are impending nuptials. The review, however, does not serve to shrink the immense dimensions of Affleck's titano-noggin.
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I can't wait to see this movie, I was lucky enough to get tickets to a sneak preview tonight. There's only one thing I like better than a superhero movie, and that's a free screening of a superhero movie. I've always liked Ben Affleck, he was fantastic in Chasing Amy, but as good as he was, Jason Lee was better, he should have put on some weight and played Foggy Nelson. And to that contra guy, people are just being a gentleman to the lady reviewer, I guess I'm old school, but I was brought up to act that way around ladies. Of course we're on the net, and for all we know she's really a guy, so maybe you have the right idea.
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"White chick of the week"??? "White man saves the day.." WTF are you babbling about?? Why the fuck are you bringing race up, you whining little fuck? Go back to your cave and continue to whack off to your gay anime bestiality snuff films, asshat...
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seem to want to like AND dislike a film. Just tell the main feeling. A lot of things are repeated in this review, and it's unspecific...
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don't ever say Ben Affleck is 'taken for granted' - what a fucking joke. He CANNOT ACT! Period.
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Feb 13, 2003 1:59:15 PM CST
Wouldn't DuPont be more likely to make sweet eyes over Elektra?
by rev_skarekroe
I'm just sayin'... sk
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Am I the one one that found that opening paragraph ridiculously funny?
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A light bulb has come on and I have come to the conclusion that if it doesn't involve CGI or a comic book/graphic novel character/s you dreary lot are not fecking interested, look at all the other topics on this web page, some have only about 10 posts.......but god almighty if it's about which dysfunctional dumb ass leather clad joyboy superhero is the best then your crawling all over each to get your tuppence worth of drivel printed on the screen......at least 90% of the comments I read are absolutley crap.......and I mean laxative level crap..... sorry but that's what I think......rather than "choking your chicken" every night over these comic book characters, get out more, take up a wee hobby, but don't and I mean don't rip your knitting over these films......because like buses another one will be along in a minute.........And I fecking guarantee you when it does it will be just as bad as the last one, and you'll all be sitting at your keyboards typing...."this actor is crap","that costume ain't right", he's a wank director", "its not like the book"...............just get a fecking grip.......arrgh......just get a grip alright! Ta Ta.
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So articulate,so very much in love with the concept of character and story, so intricate! I've been waiting for a female perspective on this film (damn, on this whole site really) and now i know im not the only fangirl who cares! You go girl!
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...they love you they really love you!
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I could not agree more! DD is interesting me, but still not quite sure...
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Feb 13, 2003 7:03:55 PM CST
DD's gonna "ROCK!!!" Ben's gonna be so hot in that leather suit
by truthseekr1488
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I just got back from a Daredevil sneak preview, it was really good. If fans of the original Frank Miller story don't like this, I don't know why. Some parts of it seemed lifted right out of the comic, some of the dialogue was verbatim. I also liked it because Affleck obviously worked out for the movie, they didn't have to put plastic muscles on him like in Batman. Don't get me wrong, I liked Batman, but he couldn't really move around, he just kind of stood there and stuck his fists out as bad guys ran into them, in this, Daredevil was really jumping around fighting. Good movie folks, if you liked the source material, you should like this.
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Although I have never seen you, your pretentious name and reviews have somehow made me believe you
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I liked it. It was entertaining as hell. Affleck isn't my first choice but at least he has the physicality to play a Superhero unlike michael keaton's batman. It's a good movie. Not great but it held my interest from start to finish. Colin Farrel was great. I thought he was all wrong for it and I repent. JGarner and MCD were excellent-they should have shown us more of them. This film was too short but I didn't feel short changed. Good show! Daredevil 2 has my $9.00...cheers Fanboys
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oops
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(With all due respect to the always articulate Ms. DuPont.)
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Fuck you, bitch! Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Last Action Hero, The Hunt For Red October, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas... Kamen has done solid work, and you haven't done shit.
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Missing Key elements for greatness. Too much CGI; for $15 mill and barley any CGI, Crouching TIger, et al, made their stars fly around and kick a whole lotta arse. If they were trying to keep it "real" and got the extra $$ to do so, be a little more inventive w/ your Hong Kong boys. Also, MGD as Kingpin was done a disservice. Kingpin was a REGAL asskicker. In the CB, you got the idea that he was conflicted as the Kingpin of crime, and was madly devoted to Vanessa, his wife. MCD could've played that if given the shot. He was cast because he was the best actor for the part, right? I was cool w/ that, however, why then was his race played up from his intro? "Hip hop blaring as the camera crept up the building." Not the most color blind way to get started. Editing was a bit shoddy, and the fight scenes were dark, and sometimes confusing. However, at least watching them, I believed that DD could jump amidst a bunch of punks and use superhuman senses to whup arse. I just wished for a clearer visual representation of same. Which is why it's hard for me to criticize Johnson for the picture, yet hard to support him at the same time. I saw the passion for the story and the characters; unfortunately, I also saw his lack of experience with such a large scale project. Having him work in tandem with a director of talent AND experience (hell, co-direct the thing) may have been a better option. It's like me directing Spider-man: I've loved the character for 30 of my 33 years, but other than shorts in film school, don't give ME $100 mill of your hard earned money, I haven't built the body of work yet to handle that kind of thing. Superman and to some degree Spider-Man worked on a massive scale of success because the filmmakers had reverence for the material, and made it so. The Blade films worked IMHO for the same reasons as well; X-men to a point. I hope DD gets a second round, because Affleck worked for me, Bulleye and Foggy were great fun, and with the right attention paid to character development, Kingpin could REALLY be a force to be reckoned with, and Elektra could've been someone you REALLY cared about. And I think these characters deserve that. They DON'T deserve a "meet cute on the playground fight"..no ONE person watching thought "HOly shite, maybe this could be that guy, get on the phone with Channel 7 news?" There's a BLIND guy flipping around in public trying to kick the crap out of some chick, for the love of Mike. Overall, a good first effort, that needs some serious tweaking for the sequel..which it does deserve.
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Probably have to be made out of Spidey's web stuff to stand the stress.
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..saw "Daredevil"(of course) liked it even if it did seem a little choppy, like alot of character stuff got left on the editing room floor. Oh well, the Bullseye/Elektra fight was handled well enough, and the bar brawl was good as well, shades of "The Crow" although nowhere near as stylish and cool.
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Feb 17, 2003 1:09:45 AM CST
As usual, Ms. DuPont calls upon her strong vocabulary to write a
by a goonie
Good job, dear. I enjoyed the movie even more than she, but her criticisms are just. A very nice read.
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