title: DAREDEVIL
year: 2003
cast: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, David Keith, Colin Farrell, Jon Farvareu
rating: *
Tell me Ben Affleck is a superhero, okay... I'll buy it because I have to. Tell me Ben Affleck is blind with powers to hear what no man can see and can fight villains using this ultra-sensory... okay, I'll buy that too. But tell me that Ben Affleck was raised by a brawling ex boxer father in Hell's Kitchen, New York, and had to fight to survive and I'll throw a pie in your face. So by the time you're reading this you've cleaned off the pie but I don't have much to say about this disaster of a film based on the legendary Marvel superhero, one of the most creative superheroes ever. We get SOME backstory of Daredevil as a kid and how he got blind, but nothing about how he become a lawyer and the beginnings of his crime fighting. He meets Electra after a few really lame scenes involving he and smartass buddy Jon Farvareu discussing pop culture... Daredevil (Matt) and Electra don't hit it off; then fight each other in what seems like an MTV dance contest (the entire film has an MTV video feel, and is dizzying at that)... and the next scene DD and Electra are an item. Then they're misunderstanding each other. And Colin Farrell is to villains what the Village People were to music; no offense to the Village People: at least their songs are memorable. This is a horrible, disjointed review of a horrible, disjointed... you get the idea.
This movie made me love Keanu Reeves. It was always Keanu Reeves who ruined my favorite novels or comic books or just movies that could have been so good but...Keanu was in it. Well my friend Ben Affleck Keanu'd Daredevil. Daredevil was one of my favorite Marvel comic book heroes right up there with Spider-Man (favorite)and Iron Man (second favorite). Unlike the first Spider-Man movie directed by Sam Raimi which stuck to the basic origins story - and did it decent justice - (I won't mention the fact that Spider-Man 3 was one of the biggest pieces of dog poop I've ever seen) and Iron Man who found the perfect Tony Stark in Robert Downey Jr. - DAREDEVIL felt like they took the comic books put them in a blender, then dumped them out on the ground and walked away. First off you don't need Elektra in the first Daredevil movie - and Jennifer Garner should have been a great Elektra - why no black hair for Elektra - makes no sense at all - anyway it all comes down to Ben Affleck - he out woodened the Great Wooden One Keanu Reeves - he was horrible, the script was horrible, the directing was horrible. It made me miss the 1989 Dolph Lundgren PUNISHER movie. I put this on par with the 1990 CAPTAIN AMERICA movie and the 1994 THE FANTASTIC FOUR movie which I saw at a screening at the San Diego ComicCon...if anyone complains about the newest Fantastic Four movies, just refer them to the 1994 incarnations. The horror...the horror.
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