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Daredevil (Full Screen Edition) Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 87 Reviews)

The Director's Cut Is My Personal FAVORITE Superhero Film!
I grew up in the 70s and 80s. My favorite comic heroes included The Thing, The Fantastic Four, Conan, The Flash, Wolverine, The X-Men, Captain America (and the Falcon), Tarzan, Spider-Man and Daredevil. What intrigued me about Daredevil was that, although he was very similar to Batman (and, to a lesser extent, Spider-Man), he was BLIND!

Daredevil really started to get hot when Frank Miller and, later, Ann Nocenti wrote for the comic in the 80s (Nocenti's run started out fairly unimpressive but slowly became outstanding).

With this understanding I was naturally excited to see the film rendition of "Daredevil" that debuted in February 2003. After seeing the movie I thought it wasn't bad. They got a lot of stuff right -- like Daredevil's costume, the mood and the casting (this was my first exposure to Ben Affleck so I had no beef with him playing Matt Murdock/Daredevil). Still, there was something wrong with the picture; it was too light and brisk. Yes, it certainly had pizzazz (unlike, say, "Batman Begins"), but it was mostly superhero fluff with little depth -- a perfect example of style over substance. Plus the cutesy playground scene where Matt first meets Elektra was completely out of place.

We NOW know what went wrong: Some studio dork made the idiotic decision to cut out the meat of the story. This naturally DUMBED DOWN the film. In plain language: THE FILM WAS GUTTED!!

All I can say is: Thank God for director's cut DVDs! Two years after its theatrical release I picked up the new Director's Cut of "Daredevil" and was completely BLOWN AWAY! The director, Mark Steven Johnson, took out some unnecessary fluff, like the premature Matt/Elektra sex scene, and added over 30 minutes of material that was completely INTEGRAL to the story and SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN CUT in the first place! This new material centers around the characte-defining subplot of Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson working on a case that ties into the whole Kingpin storyline. The fight scenes are also vastly superior in the Director's Cut.

WHAT WORKS: Everything about this film magically "works." Colin Farrell is entertaining as the crazed Bullseye, Jon Favreau is splendid as Foggy and Michael Clarke Duncan is outstanding as The Kingpin, yeah, I know they deviated with the skin color, but who gives a hoot anyway?

The soundtrack, which includes selections from various heavy rock bands, is truly stupendous: The touching moments are truly touching, like when Matt & Elektra share intimate moments on the roof and Elektra's solo workout, and the kick-a$$ parts are really kick-a$$. Two great songs by Evanescence are featured: "Bring Me To Life" and "My Immortal."

There are a lot of great dialogue lines in this film as well, in particular from The Kingpin and Bullseye ("Tell me, how do you kill a man without fear?" "By putting the fear IN him").

Daredevil's origin story is also perfect: emotionally charged but not over-long or needlessly complicated (like "Hulk").

One of the greatest successes of this film is simply the MOOD. It's dark and reverent at the same time. Daredevil is perfectly portrayed as the tortured loner; Affleck does a fantastic job!

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: The aforementioned cutesy playground scene was obviously put in just for fun (to liven things up at that point), but it doesn't belong; it destroys the believability of the picture and characters. It should have been omitted from the Director's Cut. Still, it's not that bad. I can tolerate it; and I admit that it IS a fun scene, if nothing else.

Jennifer Garner is awesome, we all know that, but she doesn't really fit the character of Elektra from the comics. She has a quality to her disposition that's simply too innocent, pure and likable (not that these are bad traits, of course; they just don't fit the character of Elektra, an assassin). Kelly Hu, who played Lady Deathstrike in X2, would've been the perfect choice. Still, I personally don't mind Ms. Garner in the role; it's an acceptable deviation (one must allow some latitude in comic-to-screen adaptations).

BOTTOM LINE: "Daredevil: The Director's Cut" ranks up there with the best superhero films of all-time! You name it: X2, Spider-Man 1 & 2, Batman Begins, "Daredevil" is as good or better! In fact, it's my personal FAVORITE! If you haven't seen the Director's Cut do whatever you must to obtain a copy and see for yourself. I talked a friend of mine, who's in the comics business, into viewing the Director's Cut. His initial appraisal of the theatrical cut was 6/10 Stars; after seeing the Director's Cut he raised his rating to 9.5/10 Stars! Like me, he was utterly stupefied that the decision was actually made to gut-out such important story elements in the theatrical release.

Ahh, but all is well now because we have the Director's Cut. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already!

WOW!
I'm really sorry to say that I had never even heard of Daredevil until my cousin rented this movie. Daredevil quickly became my favorite superhero. This movie is absolutely incredible, and out of the superhero movies that have been made recently, only the Spiderman movies would rate higher on my list. So, if you enjoy comics and would like to learn more about a hero that is maybe lesser known than say, Spiderman or the Hulk, check this one out.

Fun, if incomplete
Daredevil is a better superhero film than most people give it credit for. The direction isn't outstanding, but it's certainly more than competent, and the special effects are quite novel. Ben Affleck, once you get past the personal baggage the actor brings to every role he plays, is an effective Matt Murdock. Jennifer Garner is also strong as Elektra, just please remember to skip that horrid spin-off movie she did. The rest of the cast is an A-list of stars: Colin Farrell, Michael Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano. All are great, and help ground the story emotionally.

The problem with Daredevil is that Fox, like with X-Men, fudged the film by cutting out a lot of footage. There's a whole subplot that's missing here, as well as small character moments that give the movie a stronger edge. They don't bring the film to X-Men or Spider-Man levels, but they do raise it significantly. And if you haven't tracked down the director's cut dvd, it's worth a look as well.

Otherwise, this 2-disc theatrical edition comes loaded with extras. As appropriate for a movie about the visually impaired, there is a descriptive audio track included among the commentary and enhanced viewing mode options. Lots of documentaries and featurettes on disc 2. The best cut of the film isn't here, but the extras are, so it might be worth your money to view both.

A good comic book film missing that extra punch, but still one of the better ones in the recent splurge of comic book movies.

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