Daredevil - 3/8/03

BEWARE OF SPOILERS

Quick note. I'm a big comic book fan... so keep that in mind while you read this review. Things that I found disappointing might not upset the normal viewer. The word 'normal' being subjective...

I would like to start this review off by putting something into perspective, for those of you (of us) attempting to break into the movie business.

Mark Steven Johnson's first film was Simon Birch, based on the novel by John Irving. His first script was Grumpy Old Men. His second script was Grumpier Old Men. His most recent script was Jack Frost.

Where in that list of films does it say that Mark Steven Johnson was a good choice to write and direct daredevil? Now, keep in mind that that question has nothing to do with my opinion of Johnson's work on Daredevil... but I'm just trying to figure out why Stevenson possibly got such a high profile picture, in this day of Marvel making all of their major characters into movies.

I suppose the answer would be this: you make the company money, you get your choice of projects. It makes sense, to the executives... they're banking on previous experience. They're hedging their bets. I get it... but sometimes it's just sad when a project gets placed into the hands of someone who doesn't seem right for the part.

Batman - Tim Burton - good choice, to me.

Superman - Richard Donner - great choice.

Spider-Man - Sam Raimi - great choice (terrible script by David Koepp).

X-Men - Bryan Singer - a long shot, in my opinion, since the guy hadn't picked up an X-Men book before he was given the shot at directing... and he didn't do a bad job...

Daredevil - Mark Steven Johnson - I'm sorry, who?

That's what I thought when I first heard who had gotten picked as director of this film and, subsequently, the writer as well.

For those of us who've collected comics, who've followed comics, the characters, the intricate plots that flow between titles, into other companies... hell, we follow the writers, the pencillers, the inkers, the cover artists...

A couple of names stand out when talking about different characters. For me, when talking about Daredevil, Frank Miller is the name that stands out. He brought the line back from the dead, with issue 158, and never looked back. A large part of the structure of the Daredevil film is because of Frank Miller, so I think it's important to bring him up and discuss his work on the Daredevil books.

Daredevil was created around 1964 by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, drawn by Wally Wood, John Romita and Gene Colan. Stan Lee is an all around genius... and the three artists are all part of an ecclectic group of pioneers. Issue 158 ushered in a breath of life into the comic book line. Miller played around with sequential storytelling. He played around with the powers of the character, developed them more, so that the plot, the storyline, the villians... everything became more complex.

With Klaus Janson inking Miller's work, it became some of the most exciting comic book artwork to happen to Marvel in a long time. I would have to say that their work rivals Dennis O'neil and Neal Adams work on the Batman series... which those two brought back from the dead, as Miller had done with Daredevil.

So. In short, Miller was brilliant. And, in the process, he created a new character to battle Daredevil and Matt Murdock. That was Elektra, one of the more popular characters created (besides all of the original characters).

For those of you who don't know about it, Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz (the best painter in comics history) collaborated on Elektra: Assassin, one of the best comics to come out, ever.

Ok, so... credit Miller for Elektra, when it comes to the film. Credit him for the death of Elektra, by Bullseye. I think those two things were critical to the plot behind the film... I just figured on giving you a tiny bit of history, that's all.

Ok. First off, my problems with the film.

Here goes.

As with Spider-Man, I am infuriated with Hollywood (and with Marvel as well) for changing the origin's of characters. I cannot explain how mad I am when I see things like the following:

In Batman - Jack Napier DOES NOT KILL BRUCE WAYNE'S PARENTS. Also, HARVEY DENT IS NOT BLACK. Just two small bits that bothered me... along with the fact that Joker never actually dies.

In Spider-Man - If there are 15 genetically engineered spiders, and one bites Peter Parker, what's to stop someone else from getting bit and becoming just like Spider-Man? The whole point of Spider-Man's origin was that he was bitten in a freak accident by a spider who got hit with radioactivity... a one in a billion event... JESUS!

In Daredevil - Matt Murdock does not walk in on his father muscling some guy, only to run away into a lot filled with radioactive material, almost getting hit by a forklift which then hits a can, slicing it open, which sprays his eyes. I'm sorry... that's not what happened.

Also, The Kingpin had NOTHING to do with the death of Matt Murdock's father. That was very upsetting to me, that they felt the need to package this movie into a tiny little box for the viewers. It wasn't enough that the Kingpin was a badguy who controlled most of the crime in the city... noooooo... they had to make him the killer of Daredevil's father. Jesus, give me a break.

And, finally, Bullseye does not kill Elektra's father in the comics. This was something else that bothered me... I'm finding that, more and more, these movies aren't really for the fans... they're for people who aren't fans yet. And that shit pisses me off.

The origin of Daredevil is that walking home from school one day he sees an old man walking across the street, about to get hit by a truck which just so happens to have radioactive material in its cab. Matt races across the street and pushes the old man out of the way, when the truck swerves, knocking off a canister of the radioactive material, which then splashes into his eyes.

The whole point of this is to show that Matt has these feelings of having to do good, even though he's putting himself in danger... and subsequently, something bad happens to him that, in the end, is good... and helps him in his quest for justice.

There's a point behind origins. I'm tired of these writers and producers changing the story around to make everything fit into neat little packages. For me, it ruined a part of the film.

Also, why didn't Bullseye have a costume? Bullseye has a costume... he's a villian. He's one of the badguys... and HE HAS A COSTUME!!! Why put in stupid jokes about "I want a bloody costume," when the character has one? Was this one of those decisions: Well, if Colin is wearing a costume, you won't be able to tell it's Colin, so what would the point of getting Colin be, if we can't see him?

To me, this was another sore point to the film. I can't stand these half-assed attempts at bringing comic book characters and their universes to life.

Another thing. The Kingpin is not black. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be un-PC, or anything like that, but he's not. He's a big white guy. He's been a big white guy since the 1960's. This goes along with the whole Batman/Harvey Dent/Billy Dee Williams thing... it makes no goddamn sense.

Also, Joe Pantoliano's character, Ben Urich. A pivital character in Frank Miller's Born Again series (not to mention a friend of Peter Parker's)... a completely useless character here, that was supposed to set the mood, I suppose, for the cynics (like the useless police detective)? I don't know. He's the one that 'believes'... yet he has no further character development, other than being here, there, throwing a cigarette to light an oil slick in the form of DD (which Daredevil would never do, and which was taken directly from The Crow)... and who finds out the identity of Daredevil, but decides not to say anything... and to what end? None. Nothing. No point, no reason.

I'm jumping around here, I'm sorry... let me start with the direction.

Johnson found himself with more money than he'd ever worked with, and it got away from him. This film reminded me of the first time I saw Godzilla (the Devlin and Emmerich remake). Godzilla was so full of CG that it was muddy. That's exactly what I thought of this film, especially after the first action scene in Josie's Tavern (another Miller credit). I can't tell you how upset I was when they didn't even mention Turk!

Ok, anyway. The film was originally budgeted at $50 million dollars. While in production, Spider-Man did so well that the budget was increased to $75 million, to bring the visuals up to par with the $140 million dollar Spider-Man film. This added to some of the visuals in the film that reminded me of Proyas' The Crow but, again, muddy. Images of Daredevil falling from skyscrapers, jumping, flipping, sailing through the air... all of them were very difficult to see.

I did find that a number of the Daredevil effects, i.e. his point of view, were very well done. I was impressed with the way that was handled. Very smart.

The story... well, the story was a few things. One, it was too damned short. Now, keep this in mind. There were three cuts to the Daredevil film. The first two cuts had it with an R rating... and at a final running time of only 103 minutes, I'm sure the DVD (if they're smart enough to give us a director's cut) will give us much more character development and more complex scenes.

I think that much of the Kingpin's dialog was contrived and useless, and his character was underdeveloped, to the point where he was just a kind of puppet. His right hand man, Wesley (Leland Orser) was as useless as Ben Urich.

The Daredevil and Elektra characters were ok. I think both Affleck and Garner did good jobs with them both. I was particularly impressed with Affleck, and I'm looking forward to seeing him in the sequel. I don't know about Garner and the Elektra movie that's in development... we'll have to see about that one.

Colin Farrell, I was not impressed with his work. I would have preferred him in costume.

Michael Clarke Duncan was wasted in this role. He's a great actor when the role suits him, and this one didn't. Seems this one was just a paycheck.

Jon Favreau was great as Foggy, and I hope he comes back in the sequel. I think he's a wonderful actor, I've loved his work from the beginning.

David Keith (as Murdock's father) and Scott Terra (as the young Matt) were both great in their respective roles.

One of the things I found most humorous about the film were all of the inside jokes. Specifically all of the names of characters that are or have been writers and artists on the Daredevil line. First is the boxing match where Matt finds his dad drunk at the TV. They mention Colan... that would be Gene Colan, a huge Daredevil artist. Second would be 'Devil' Murdock's fight with John Romita, one of Marvel's first artists who worked on just about every comic they ever put out, including Daredevil.

The old man that young Matt stops from crossing the street is none other than Stan Lee, the creator of pretty much every cool character Marvel has to offer.

Other names float in there. Miller, Bendis, and Mack... three fighter's on the Fixer's payroll that 'Devil' Murdock fought... Jose Quesada (who's real first name is Joe)... Quesada is, now the editor-in-chief of Marvel, but who worked on a number of Marvel lines, including Daredevil. Also, the doctor in the lab was Kevin Smith, who wrote some of the Daredevil books.

Pretty cute to add all that stuff...

I was very impressed with the work on the Daredevil costume. Not sure why they didn't want to try and fit Elektra in hers... the leather outfit Garner wore was ok... but I think everyone was trying to get her breasts to be as pronounced as possible (fine with me), instead of trying to get her into a cool outfit. Bullseye's garb was pretty ridiculous, and his 'tattoo' on his forehead... well, I thought that was pretty terrible, too.

Out of all of the films that cinematographer Ericson Core has made, this one is the first with real CG effects. His last film, The Fast and The Furious was more about catching the vibrancy of the cars and the action. His work on Payback was very well done, using color to affect atmosphere. But this film, it seems, got away from both the director and cinematographer. It's too bad.

I hope that when the sequel comes, we're given a different director and DP. Sure, the movie made money. That's because every fan boy on the planet went to see the film... then every Affleck fan. Then every fan of the TV show Alias... and they all brought their friends.

Guess we'll just have to see.