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September 6, 2003 |
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I
don’t know where I was in February, but it obviously wasn’t
at the movies. Somehow I missed seeing Daredevil in the theaters.
Maybe it was the thought of Ben Affleck that made me leery. |
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Anyway,
I have finally seen the movie on DVD and I have to admit, Affleck
was pretty good- as the blind lawyer
Matt Murdock. He was almost
cute, really, and I very rarely have good things to say about the
man. I thought the Matt/Foggy daylight scenes were some of the best
parts
of the movie. But as Daredevil- I don’t know. The name itself
suggests a bravado that was wholly lacking from this movie—except
for the cocky, blind lawyer. Where was the cocky, blind superhero? They
kept trying to make the movie into Tim Burton’s Batman, which
certainly got up my nose. |
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Ok,
the cast was good, the death scenes marvelous, but I did have a
couple
problems with the plot…
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The
thing is Electra is a sequel- otherwise, she’s not such
a satisfying character. She’s not the girl you met yesterday-
she’s the girl you met ten years ago and who has changed beyond
recognition. She’s not your latest fling, but your first love.
And to establish that, you would need even more flashbacks- one to
the childhood that changed Matt into Daredevil, and a second to establish
his first go round with Electra, when they were both mere mortals. |
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There
should have been two movies- the first would establish Daredevil-
how he got his powers, what he does- blah
blah blah, the second one
would open with a flash back to Matt at college where he meets a girl
who one day just vanishes. And then, present day, she appears in town
as a master assassin. That was the fun thing about Electra, because
you didn’t know if she was good or bad, if she would choose
her job over her lover- she was, after all, hired to kill him at one
point. |
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The trouble with my plan is, of course, who would be the villain in
the first movie, if you move Kingpin, Electra and Bullseye to the second
one? Well, Kingpin could be throughout the first movie, the villain
behind the villain that Daredevil suspects exists but cannot yet confront. |
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I
consider myself to be fairly well read and yet I cannot come up
with a single other memorable Daredevil villain.
I remember he dated
the Black Widow. But it seems that most of the time he’s struggling
against himself. Or with the ninja Hand, or his former sensei. Or having
his girlfriends leave him because he’s too busy fighting crime
to pay them any attention. Or losing his powers, or having them go out
of control. Self introspection doesn’t play as well on screen
I guess. |
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And
I wish it had been a nun instead of a priest to tend Matt’s
wounds at the church, as that would have fit the Daredevil continuity
a little better, at least for fangirls like me. |
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Like
the superhero world isn’t already
too full of men. |
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The
DVD had a nice documentary where they talked to all the writers
and artists that worked past and present on the comic, which was
very
cool. mmm... Frank Miller.... |
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