Daredevil

Review by Jason Gaston

 

Answer me this: What is more unbelievable... The fact that a blind man fights crime in red leather every night or the fact that, by day, he's an honest lawyer?

Both require a healthy of suspension of disbelief, but that's just something you have to have with these superhero movies. I mean, yeah... you've got a blind guy fighting crime in the guise of Daredevil, but then again you've got a guy who puts on a bat suit to fight clowns, a guy who wears his underwear on the outside of his pants and flies, and a guy who shoots spider webs out of his wrists and swings like a trapeze queen.

If the word "reality" enters your vocabulary while talking about these kinds of movies, you have no business going to them in the first place.

To recap.... Daredevil. He's quick, he's agile, he's blind as a bat. It's all good, though, because when he lost his sight as a boy he also gained heightened senses of smell, taste, and touch and a type of human radar. Lawyer by day, crime fighter by night, he prowls the streets fighting for the oppressed and dispensing his own style of justice.

Daredevil stars Ben Affleck. Now, I'm not a Ben Affleck hater by any means, but he just didn't nail this part at all as far as I'm concerned. As Daredevil and his alter-ego Matt Murdock, Ben just seems like he's going through the motions. As Matt Murdock, he plays a type of character he's played a hundred times over and, as Daredevil, he just whispers a lot in a gruff voice as though he's copying what Michael Keaton did in Batman.

Still, the movie is fun enough. Sure, it's unambitious fluff that lacks the scope and scale of X Men, Spider-Man, or Blade... but it's a fun way to kill an afternoon with an hour and a half of unabashed escapism. It's fluff, but it's fun fluff.

Also in the movie is Jennifer Garner as Elektra, Colin Farrell as Bullseye, and Michael Clarke Duncan as The Kingpin. These are the people who are fun to watch. Jennifer is gorgeous and deadly, Colin Farrell hams it up and obviously has a great time playing an over-the-top villain, and Michael Clarke Duncan is very effective in the role of the Kingpin despite the controversial casting decision that won him the role.

Hey, as far as I'm concerned and care, The Kingpin is and always has been black.

The story is a little hokey and isn't as well written as Spider-Man or any of the other recent superhero movies, but as a movie released in a crap month like February, it's solid gold.

The fanboys will gripe and whine about it as they gripe and whine about every other comic book movie, but Hollywood doesn't give a crap about what they think so why should the rest of us?

It's not drop dead wonderful and will probably be all but forgotten in ten years, but it's fun and it's harmless, and it's a nice why to kill some spare time. Check it out if you can turn off your love affair with gravity, physics, and reality for a little while.