Ben Affleck is off to a good start with his new movie
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Daredevil,
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currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
Ben Affleck is off to a good start with his new movie “Daredevil,” currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
Affleck, a devout fan of the comic book hero Daredevil, lands the first blow in what is quickly shaping up to be the year of the superhero in the film industry with the upcoming release of the second “X-Men,” the second and third “Matrix” movies, the June release of the of “The Hulk,” production set to begin on the next “Superman” movie and Lucy Lawless reportedly signed to play Wonder Woman by this time next year.
Although Affleck would not have been my first choice to play the blind superhero, he does a decent job as Matt Murdock, the successful attorney who defends the poor and downtrodden by day, and the edgy vigilante running across rooftops in the crimson red costume at night.
The two real stars of this movie are Jennifer Garner as the martial arts expert Elektra Natchios, Murdock’s girlfriend and the crimson red Daredevil costume
Garner, who is probably best known for her staring role on the ABC series “Alias,” has great on-screen chemistry with Affleck.
The Daredevil-Elektra/Affleck-Garner dynamic makes the film one of the sexiest and morally complex superhero movie you could imagine.
But that red leather costume and the specially designed baton go a long way to selling Affleck as Daredevil. I mean in that specially tailored, sculpted leather suit, even I could… OK, OK, this officially marks the part where I’ve gone too far.
But the work of three-time Oscar winning costume designer James Acheson (“Spider-Man,” “The Last Emperor”) shines through in this movie.
Michael Clarke Duncan does a surprisingly good job, going off type staring as Wilson Fisk, known throughout the underworld as the Kingpin, and Colin Farrell fits into his starring role as Bullseye, the assassin with perfect aim.
Director Mark Steven Johnson does a great job in the first half of the film retelling the tragic beginnings of Matt Murdock’s life with his father, Jack ‘The Devil’ Murdock, played perfectly by David Keith, the washed up prize fighter, whose love and guidance help Matt overcome the sudden loss of his sight after his eyes are ruined by some unknown toxic wastes.
But its the same accident that gives the blind teenager superhuman taste, smell, hearing, sense of touch and a strange bat-like radar that allows him to “see” images through sound waves. His hearing is so acute that he can literally hear another persons heart beating and tell by the change in their heart rhythm when they are lying or when they are about to take aggressive action against him such as firing a gun. So Daredevil can literally dodge bullets before they are even fired.
When Matt witnesses the brutal beating that killed his father, the youth dedicates himself to helping others, both as an attorney who will take almost any case, and as a self made street avenger who has honed himself physically and trained heavily in the martial arts to fight injustice wherever he finds it. In part his persona as Daredevil is out of respect to his father’s nickname
Although the initial part is very good, the second half of the movie seems to lose its focus and starts to get mired down in Daredevil’s sudden obsessive compulsion to find and bring down the Kingpin.
The fight scenes are very stylish but in the end lack the same kind of dramatic tension needed for the kind of big payoff you expect in a movie like this.
The film has more than 500 special visual effects shots.
One of the curiosities of the film include Affleck’s longtime friend and movie collaborator Kevin Smith who starred in a couple of scenes.
Smith, the renowned writer/director of “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma,” actually wrote a volume of Daredevil stories for Marvel Comics back in 1998, emphasizing themes of religion and morality, Smith’s mission was to present “a Daredevil you’ve never seen before: a hero who is about to learn that a man without fear is a man without faith… and a man without faith is easily unmade.”
There is one scene of sexuality, no nudity, that parents may want to watch out for, and there are also several people killed in this movie which may make it too dark and edgy for young children.
