movie coverI'd rather be watching TV![IMDB link] [Netflix link] A bit late, but we’re finally watching this 5+ years later, and it’s nice to be able to skip directly to the Director’s cut and not watch the last-minute theatrical cut they made to please the studios with a PG-13 rating. (I call that censorship, personally.)

LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a superhero named Daredevil;
Comparable to Batman in jumping from level to level.
A rapist was unfortunately ruled innocent;
A train turned his body into a huge dent!
This is the kind of violence in which I can revel.

HAIKU REVIEW: Nobody saw this!
An underrated hero —
Not just some zero.

PEOPLE: Ben Affleck (was kind of surprised at this choice, but apparently this was Kevin Smith’s suggestion). Jennifer Garner reprises her role as Elektra. Colin Farrel. Jon Favreau. Michael Clarke Duncan (Armageddon, The Island, Sin City) makes an excellent Kingpin — even if his skin is a different color, he looks JUST LIKE HIM. Plus, he was Kingpin’s voice in MTV’s Spider-Man (2003) series (the one where Neil Patrick Harris played Spider-Man, and Lisa Loeb played Mary Jane). Jude Ciccolella (Mike Novak from 24) & Coolio (Director’s Cut only, and we could have perhaps done without the Coolio side-plot). And an awesome Kevin Smith cameo, as well as a non-speaking Stan Lee cameo.

QUIRKS: Your standard superhero action movie with the expected quirks — a romance angle, a crime angle, and a “secret identity life” angle (i.e. a subplot involving DareDevil’s civilian identity, Matt Murdock).

VISUALS: Pretty good action scenes. DareDevil might not whip around buildings as well as Spider-Man, but he does it at least as well as Batman. And he does it with limited sight, and with far less money than Batman. Batman/Bruce Wayne relies on being rich, and can buy fancy toys to get him out of situations. DareDevil is a lawyer, but not a rich one. He takes pro bono cases and has clients that pay him… in fish.

MORALS: This movie is not as moral as the higher-profiled Marvel superhero films. They could get away with more, because DareDevil is less popular. Batman got popular and evolved into somebody who would NEVER kill a bad guy, even though his roots in the 1940s comics were… Killing bad guys. A dark knight. One who kills criminals who the justice system doesn’t manage to snag. Well — since DareDevil is relatively unknown, and hardly anybody would see this film… The director’s cut, at least, has some major death-inducing violence. Bad guys being killed. And I’m happy for this.

BAD STUFF: You wont see Kingpin in the Spider-Man movies, despite the fact that he’s the main villain — becuase of intellectual property laws and licensing issues. So if it seems strange that Kingpin is only in the DareDevil movies — that is why. Corporate politics and capitalistic greed.

CONCLUSION: 4/5 stars on Netflix. 7.5/10 on IMDB; I’d give it closer to a 7, Carolyn would give it closer to an 8, so I voted 8 for both of us. The director’s cut was a staggering 2+ hours, and this gave us plenty of time to cover DareDevil’s origin, civilian life, love live, and “supervillian conflict”, without having to gloss over things in a rushed manner.

Carolyn said it was comparable to Hellboy 2… But I think Hellboy 2 was more interesting visually, and had richer characters.

RECOMMENDATION: Don’t pass this one up just because DareDevil has less notoriety than Spider-Man, X-Men, Wolverine, The Hulk, or Batman. This went into territory The Dark Knight was scared to go into, despite the fact that Batman started out as someone who frequently shot, killed, and maimed criminals. With The Dark Knight, we had to simply imagine how horrible The Joker was, as he did things that they were scared to show on camera. Maybe a director’s cut of The Dark Knight will come out someday, with the violence intact. Otherwise, I don’t like being babied, and in some ways this [The Director’s Cut] was better than The Dark Knight for not pulling punches, and for sticking to the canon more. The Dark Knight had made-up main characters that weren’t even in the comic book! Rachel Dawes? Please! DareDevil is more authentic than The Dark Knight. Maybe not better, but more authentic.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Every Marvel superhero movie ever.

MOVIE QUOTE: Daredevil: Hey, that light? At the end of the tunnel? Guess what? That’s not heaven…
Jose Quesada: I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!
Daredevil: That’s the C train!

COINCIDENCES: (Crank, DareDevil) 2 movies in a week where someone rides a motorcycle standing up. Also, this had lots of backflips like Hellboy 2.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Benj liked it. Jordan and Wayne didn’t like it. Nobody else watched it. Wow.

Mood: full
Music: Kreator – Ripping Corpse