Daredevil - The Director's Cut [Blu-ray]

This is one movie you won't want to not miss! Honestly, whose idea was it to have daredevil play fight Electra? That scene makes me so sick to my stomach. I tried to vomit but I couldn't because my vomit was afraid of seeing this movie. The soundtrack is the worst! It is as if they found a bad compilation cd on the ground in a highschool parking lot and decided, hey, lets use this instead of some composer and his crummy orchestra. I bought this movie hoping they would have cut out the horrible electra love scenes and changed the music but they hadn't. They kept everything that sucked about the original release and that makes it even suckier. This is the only comicbook movie worse than Fantastic 4. Keep your 7 dollars. Do not buy this dvd unless you want to hurt yourself.

This was a pretty good comic adaption. I was very satisfied with the story line. Ben Affleck did a good job playing Matt Murdock. Duncan was also a good pick for the Kingpin. Only part I didn't like was the Character Bullseye. Ferrel was a good choice of an actor to play him, but they made his character to dumb and nothing like the comic book character. The Bullseye branded on his forehead looked retarded. Besides that and Daredevil's super healing factor, the movie was pretty awesome.

Several years ago, it is quite likely that you were one of the millions who bought a ticket to see X-Men or Spiderman in the theater. The massive success of these two movies convinced studio execs that the public was desperate for any and all things Superhero. In short, it is because of you, yes you, that the film Daredevil darkens our world.

Daredevil tells the story of lawyer Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck), who due to a childhood accident involving toxic chemicals has no fear. He is thus able to leap off of skyscrapers and land on the ground without shattering his tibias. Along the way he encounters Elektra (Jennifer Garner), who he fights on a teeter-totter, Bullseye (Colin Farrell), who embraces every stereotype about the Irish, (namely that they have really good aim) and Michael Clarke Duncan, who plays against character for once, in his groundbreaking role as A Really Big Guy.

Only a fool would choose to leap headfirst into such a world of second tier heroes on his own, and Mike, despite voluntarily spending hours of his time watching Daredevil, is no fool. So his good friends Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, (who are both also Men Without Fear) are all along for the ride. It's a trio of crime fighting Riffiness that no Riffaholic should Riff without.

Now that Amazon has finally created a separate page for the Director's Cut I can finally go ahead and review it without running the risk of this review being pooled with the reviews for the inferior theatrical release.

Okay, moving on. I didn't know anything about the Daredevil character when I first saw the theatrical release of this movie, and while I found the premise of the character quite intriguing, the movie left me lukewarm, at best. Having said that, it was still better than I had expected in light of the poor reviews. However, being a fan of the genre (I was "raised" on the Superman movies of the late seventies and early eighties), I decided to check out the Daredevil Director's Cut when I heard about how different it was from the original. My first reaction? Well, not until I actually saw the DC did I realize just how badly the powers-that-be managed to butcher this movie for its theatrical release. I, in fact, found the DC to be such a vast improvement that I started reading the comics. And now, after having read through almost the entire run of Daredevil, I can still say that I remain a fan of this movie, and have become a huge fan of the character.

People who absolutely hated the theatrical release will not like this cut, but they will certainly hate it a little less. People who found the original to be "okay," will most likely be impressed. This doesn't mean that this movie is perfect (my five stars are a reflection of my enjoyment of the film, not its actual merits). There are many scenes that make me cringe, and the infamous "playground scene" is as ridiculous in this cut as it is in the original. The acting is a little uneven, even though I generally like Affleck's take on the character. The fact that he is stellar in some scenes lets you forget about the scenes that are not as well acted. While many of the things I find goofy about this movie (such as the mandatory "trying-out-my-weapons warm-up scene" and the silly catch phrases) are very typical of the comic book movie genre, the strength of this movie lies in its ability to transcend said genre and become something more. The action scenes are pretty good, for the most part, but this movie is ultimately not really an action movie. People looking for straight action should look elsewhere.

Instead, this movie is the best combination of action, drama, comedy, and crime that I have ever seen. It actually manages to be both funny and tragic at the same time in a way that is actually believable, in part due to the inherent contradictions of the main character. He's the lawyer who is also a vigilante, and a man haunted by tragedy and guilt who also manages to be a witty romantic and optimist. There is also the unusual (though doubtlessly successful) premise of a superhero with a disability. The blindness angle is actually played up a little bit more in the movie than in the comic book, even though the difference lies more in how they have chosen to present the character than in his inherent abilities.

To sum up a long review, if you want to see an unsual comic book movie that is so much more than a comic book movie, this is the one for you. If you are looking for straight action, look elsewhere. I, for one, love this movie - warts and all.

My teenage son collects marvel comics movies and is pleased with this one as well as the others.