DAREDEVIL review

All of the fanboys of the world, all the film geeks of the world and all those doubting Thomases need to purse up their lips and kiss Ben Affleck’s perfectly formed ass and then promptly dine on their own words, because Ben NAILS Matt Murdock and Daredevil.

Not since Christopher Reeve nailed SUPERMAN has an actor so beautifully captured the image, soul and charisma of a character drawn from the pages of comic books. This isn’t just any DAREDEVIL either… this is Frank Miller’s Daredevil. The smiles at Foggy, the cockiness and charm of Matt Murdock and the grim determination and vengeful hate for the criminals that plague Hell’s Kitchen… it is all there. The pain and agony of a hero that knows pain and agony. God, what I’d give if Warner Brothers could realize Batman this well.

Remember the Tim Burton BATMAN? Of course you do. For me, Batman was never as perfectly Batman as he was after his opening scene with those two crooks on the rooftops of Gotham. Even that was played broad. The crooks were extremely hammy up there, it was never really played real, but hyper stylized. Here… Here in a red leather suit and smaller horns… DAREDEVIL easily kicks both shins of D.C. and Warners’ BATMAN and says… “Catch me if you can!”

In comics, Batman and Daredevil were separated by logos in the top right hand corner of the comics. D.C. and Marvel. Both had their greatest issues written and drawn by Frank Miller. Both were remarkable human specimens that trained their very human bodies to the peak of human endurance – and in Miller’s hands… both suffered.

Is DAREDEVIL perfect?

Well, in many ways yeah. Daredevil is. Every last bit of Daredevil and Matt Murdock’s character is note perfect. I might wish to have seen Elektra drawn a bit clearer and elaborated upon oh and in her clingy crimson cotton or silks. I might have wished that Michael Clarke Duncan’s Kingpin fought a bit more Kingpin-ish. I very well wish I could have seen Daredevil fighting Stiltman and The Owl… but ya know… For what I did see, I’m pretty damn happy.

Why?

Because BULLSEYE is an absolute delight. Colin Farrell relishes the screen like Robert Shaw’s Grant in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE with the homicidal glee of Martin Landau’s Leonard from NORTH BY NORTHWEST and a tad of Tommy Lee Jones’ Ryan Gaerity in BLOWN AWAY. Watching Bullseye work is to watch a man bored by the lack of challenges in the world and utterly impressed with his own expertise. You can tell he’s grown weary of killing people in pedestrian everyday sort of ways. He’s seen them die a thousand times, but what if they died by paperclips, peanuts, canes, panes of glass and playing cards? Ahhhh, therein lies the satisfaction and joy… the artistry of a master-killer and his art… the death of those before him. He is a lethal egotist. A man that with each toss expects a loss. It really is something to behold. His swagger, his brogue… and strangely, even that absurd scar on his head grew on me. It feels like he’s saying, “Come on, Hit me with you best shot… I said, Hit Me with your Best Shot… FIRE AAAAWAAAAAAAAYYY!!!”

Because Foggy Nelson is the best realized comic book support character and friend ever. Nobody ever nailed Jimmy Olsen or Perry White or Flash Thompson or Alfred or Commissioner Gordon or Dick Grayson or Barbara Gordon or Casey Jones or April O’Neil or on and on and on. I mean, this is absolutely Foggy Nelson. The Plus One in Matt Murdock’s life. That happy go-lucky always slightly clueless, always amusing, always heartfelt, always a little out for number one. Foggy Nelson. The pleasantly plump cynically delighted barrister in waiting… the support to a superior lawyer, always slightly perturbed that a blind man could find better women than him. And Jon Favreau nails it. Hammers the railroad spike through the heart of the part.

And mainly because I love Ben Affleck’s Daredevil/Matt Murdock! Ben brings so much more to this character than he has to his other work. It is like he knew that people would be drawing comparison’s to the Guy Pearce’s and the Matt Damon’s and the Edward Norton’s of the world. People that have never played the role, but whom everyone and their brother said, “Should’ve.” When Ben grits those teeth in that cowl, it just makes me giddy. Watching that knowing smile peak out when he’s playground tangoing with Elektra… I giggle. Hell, just when he’s walking down the street after a bad night and day, and he smells Elektra, hears her high heels and senses her presence and pauses… before we know it is her, he does, the look on his face cues her revealing. It’s just… well it is just perfect. Watching him remove that tooth, pop those pills and lay in that ‘coffin’. Watching him use that club in the subway for a Sonar ping to define the room… well, damn, what can I say… it gave me geek wood. I never saw that, heard that in the comics. It was that extra dimension that film gives, like when Gandalf bumped his head in Bilbo’s home… one of those… OF COURSE smacks to the foreheads that made me say, “Duh, how come I never thought of that!?!?!?”

How’s the romance between Daredevil and Elektra? Well, personally the best comic romance drawn on screen is still Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Keaton in BATMAN RETURNS. Second is Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder in SUPERMAN 2. DAREDEVIL comes in third. Why third? Because it needed more time. I know, folks would have preferred more Kingpin and less Elektra/Matt… but frankly… this is where I take a radical left turn and begin levitating away from what I feel will be the mainstream reaction.

To me… This particular story is about Matt and Elektra. Oh sure, the center center is Matt Murdock and his struggle with his own sense of right and wrong, but the key. The key here to the soul of this story is Elektra and Daredevil. To me, Kingpin fighting Daredevil could have waited for the sequel. Hell, if it had been up to me, Bullseye never would have pulled a Bond Villain and filled in all the missing pieces before offing ol hornhead. I would have left Kingpin a mystery. A figure still in shadow, a fight yet to be had. I would have loved a scene of Daredevil and Elektra prowling the rooftops at night dishing out their vengeance as deadly lovers would. That initial dueling in the playground was a nice cute tango, but these two bathe in bruises and blood, it’s what makes them whole in their incomplete lives. It is that hunger, that quenching that brings them together. Broken souls that happen to fit. We see hints of that, but Elektra didn’t fall for just Matt, she fell for Daredevil too.

The key here is when Bullseye pulls a John Doe on Dee-Dee, that’s where Daredevil pulls the punch, where he “Isn’t the bad guy.” That is the moral sense of right and wrong, not a truncated flaccid Kingpin battle. Now, I might not feel this way, if… IF Daredevil’s fight with Kingpin had been worth a shit. Watching Fisk struggle to press Ben Affleck’s what… 210 lb frame above his head… Shit… Kingpin could clean and jerk 3 Afflecks with a Damon ta boot. Seeing him toss hornhead across the room was better, but I needed to see ol chrome-dome hurl a safe or a desk or something heavy and insanely viscerally deadly and blunt at him as a follow-up.

These are quibbles. Problems that won’t keep me from returning this Valentine’s Day to see it. Nor will these problems keep me from attending an early morning screening on Tuesday with my nephew – who is a Marvel Maniac at the moment.

The key here is that once again MARVEL has a damn fine film on their hands. They’ve yet to hit absolute perfection. But they’re tickling it. They’re getting damn close and damn good. This film is brutal and it has soul. The characters resonate and delight. They are keeping it real and have kept from making it comic or cartoon. They’re striving for realism and humanity amidst the superhuman and that’s what separated Marvel from D.C. in the Sixties and have kept them out in front for so long. These are legends drawn amidst the tragedy of our world, in the cities we know, with problems we have. We are truly in the Marvel Age. Excelsior!