*** Official "DAREDEVIL" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[ThomasC]

Abilities: The Kingpin has extraordinary skill in hand-to-hand combat. His fighting skills and unusual agility for a man of his size compensate for the great difference between his human level of strength and Spider-Man's superhuman strength when the two engage in unarmed combat, (Spider-Man also has inhibitions about using his full strength against an opponent without superhuman powers for fear of killing him or her.)

Does the guy who wrote that actually mean Spider-Man, or did he mean Daredevil? I realize both are Marvel characters, so there could've been a crossover...

 

[Joshua_Y]

I think what Kingpin did to DD in the film was perfectly fine. To have him throw DD 300ft and such would be foolish and would just look silly, I know its in the comic and all, but the film has to be grounded in some sort of reality. I mean, hell he threw DD across the room, isnt that enough?

 

[Chris Moe]

He does mean Spiderman, that info is taken from a fan site (the text is actually out of a marvel book that has a description of all the characters) and it is just discussing the Kingpin in general. The Kingpin is in the Spidey world as well as the Daredevil world.

 

[oscar_merkx]

Hi

I just came from seeing the DareDevil movie and I gotta say that I am so gobsmacked that this is the best movie of 2003 so far.

I have been reading marvel comics for 20 years now, mainly Spiderman, Avengers, Secret wars etc that I had my doubts about DareDevil itself.

First of all, Ben Affleck is not my favorite actor and seeing him cast as Matt Murdock / DareDevil was for me reason enough to not go see the movie, secondly Kingpin is white in the comics and seeing him being turned black was also another reason for me not to see it. There are various other shifts in the movie as well but the same thing happened with the SpiderMan movie so I took it in stride.

To me, John Goodman would have been a perfect Kingpin but that is another story.

With this in mind, I went to see DD. I know it is not good to go in with preconceived ideas, and I have avoided reading threads like this until I saw it for myself and once I finished writing this, I will read the entire thread and even make comments.

You can imagine my surprise that as soon as the movie started, there was a sense that this was going to be a very different movie indeed. The kid who played the 12 year old Matt was really incredible and what I really like about when he woke up in the hospital was how they portrayed his heightened radar sense by having all the noises come into the room and really set the tone of the rest of the movie.

I also liked the scene where Matt saves the old man crossing the road, and this turns out Stan Lee himself. Great scene indeed.

Then as Jack is killed for standing up to the Kingpin we turn to the present day and meet Foggy Nelson as well and the introduction to Elektra was really funny as she says to him are you blind or what.

As you can see there is not much I did not like about the movie, I really enjoyed it, great fight scenes and the Kingpin was great as well and this is due to Michael Duncan Clarke.

The casting of Joe Pantoliano as Ben Urich is spot on as this is something straight from the comics.

The scenes where he "sees" is done really well as it shows us how dark and upset Matt really is about his predicament.

I will leave it for now and come back if I have forgotten about the movie.

One thing that puzzled me at the end though ? I take it that Elektra did not die and is still alive as he got the braille bracelet

 

[TonyD]

moe said.....

Um...

Matt's blind.

Unless of course the braille on the pendant reads "turn your head to the right and smile"...

... or if she was yelling at him from the rooftop.

umm,
dd has super hearing and smell. he would have been able to hear or smell her on that rooftop. he would have been able to register the pattern of her heartbeat too, if he heard it from the rooftop.
remember the end when urich in a normal speaking voice says "go get him matt"

 

[Joshua_Y]

Guys, ya gotta read my posts here. While walking up the street at the end, you can tell that he smells her. And Elektra is alive. Check back on page 3.

 

[TonyD]

josh this is page 3. (at least with my settings.)

you said in your posts that he SMILES, not smells her.

i dont even know why anyone would think she isn't alive.
who else would leave the pendant there?
whether we see he on the roof or not. it's very obvious.

and why woud she give him a pendant that says look to your right?
it more likely says the same thing hers says but just in braille.

 

[Luis S]

DD's powers are pretty amazing. Remember he smelled her coming to the coffee shop before she even got through the door. Catching her scent above the streets on a rooftop would be cake.

Luis S

 

[Joshua_Y]

you said in your posts that he SMILES, not smells her.

I believe I mentioned that he smells her at the end when he's walking down the street and thats what leads him to the rooftop.

 

[Chris Farmer]

Just got back from seeing it for my first time. Overall I enjoyed it, although it felt quite spartan in terms of time. You can tell there's a good 20+ minutes of connecting tissue that's been connected.

Someone mentioned that Colan isn't mentioned, I beg to differ. I have no clue who Colan is, but at the beginning when young Matt wakes his dad up from sleeping on the couch, his dad asks "Who won?" and Matt replies "Colan." There's your homage.

I liked the Matt Murdoch and was surprised by how well Afleck portrayed him, I didn't know Ben could get that dark. The movie was definitely darker then I expected, the fights between Elektra and DD and then Elektra vs Bullseye were some of the most intense I'd ever seen in a PG-13 movie, it had to be a hairsbreadth from R even as is.

I didn't really like the lightning fast edits, combined with the darkness it made it a bit too tough to tell what's going on at times.

I really liked Duncan as Kingpin. As a non-comic person, I thought he was certainly plenty menacing, although I would have gone for some more exposition into his character. He certainly seemed like a tough guy who could handle himself. And yes, getting kicked in the kness like that will bring even Superman down if you hit him hard enough. Bending a hinged joint like the elbow or knees in the wrong direction, especially with that much force behind the impact will simply snap the joints. If pulling your arm out of its socket is like removing a ball joint, getting kicked in the knees like that is like taking the pin out of a door hinge, it's not going to work for crap afterwards.

Colin Ferrel did a great job as Bullseye, but some scenes were over the top. Killing the old lady on the plane was a little extreme. He certainly came across as a man on the edge though.

It was interesting to see comic book material taken so seriously, this is easily the darkest comic book movie I've seen (although Batman Returns might be darker, I haven't seen it). It's not nearly as light-hearted as Spider-man, or even straight out action like X-men, DD has flaws, doubts, nightmares, etc. He's not above killing people, and is plagued by doubts on if he's even right.

All in all very satisfying, if it could have been a half hour longer. I definitely look forward to the extended DVD. God bless that DVD has finally given movies that were hacked apart for theatrical release a chance to be seen in their entirety.

 

[Joshua_Y]

It was interesting to see comic book material taken so seriously, this is easily the darkest comic book movie I've seen

I believe that title would go to The Crow, Road to Perdition, or From Hell, but with the R-rated DD DVD, I'm sure it will be up there.

 

[Geoff_D]

Saw this yesterday. Utter garbage. Why do I think so? I'll explain...

So much time is spent with the backstory (it could've been a movie in itself) that I felt disconnected when the movie actually 'began'. And seeing young Matt drop some superhero moves early on completely ruins the (appallingly edited) adult Daredevil fights, as we've already seen this blind kid do the same damn thing in the first ten minutes! There's no mystique about the whole movie, and apart from the amazingly photogenic Jennifer Garner there's nothing to recommend. There's even too many Marvel references, for Chrissakes!

The director is so enamoured with his 'echo-vision' effect and his absurd editing that he completely forgets about the actual characters. Because they have so little time to interact (because of the overlong backstory) they all seem like bit players. It's like watching a goddamn tv show, especially with that low-key ending which also comes complete with cheesy sequel set-up! So it ended (thankfully) and as soon as it did I turned to my mate and said 'It's a shame they didn't show the 2nd part of the movie'. That pretty much sums up my feelings on DD...

 

[TonyD]

if you can listen a little next time you see it i think when DD kicks kingopin in the knee there is a distinct bone breaking type of sound.
so i think he had his kneecap broken by that kick.
then he fall flat right down onto that knee.

also someone mentioned batman returns as being dark. you bet it was essentially about killing babies, wasn't it?

 

[oscar_merkx]

DD is still top of the BO in its second week with $ 18 mil, not bad

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, I saw it last night, and I have to chime in on the negative.

First off, let me say that I am a big comic book fan. I'm there no matter what others say. I'm not the biggest fan of ol hornhead, but I have read Kevin Smith's treatment and it was wonderful.

That being said, I think this movie is missing the life that Spiderman has. Where Spiderman got the secondary characters right, the characters didn't have the same life to them. I also thought character development was rather nonexistant. Jenifer Garner really wasn't given anything to work with.

As for Ben, when he was trying to be brooding and serious, there's this giant sign over his head that says "I'm Acting!!". It wasn't coming across naturally at all. The only time he seemed earnest was when he put on the charm.

Also, the playground fight was horrible. Was it just me, or did all of you want to scream "Mortal Kombat!!!" when they were facing each other and the camera was zooming back? The whole scene rubbed me the wrong way.

The best parts of the film were the flashback and the Kevin Smith cameo.

I will see if the director's cut makes a better film, but I have a feeling it won't.

Jason

 

[NickSo]

If anybody saw JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE this weekend when JENNIFER GARNER was on (and of course she looked AMAZING), she says straight out Elektra was still alive

 

[Chris Moe]

I asked this awhile back and never got an answer so I'll try again. Can someone please explain to me how Daredevil can leap off of buildings and jump real high and whatnot? As far as I know he doesn't have superhuman strength, just superhuman senses (except sight of course). I am not faulting the movie because of what he can do, I am just genuinely curious if there is an explanation in the comics (according to Ebert's online review there is).

 

[Andy Sheets]

I don't recall any such explanation in the comics. If Daredevil does anything that seems superhuman in how he jumps off buildings, swings from flagpoles, and so forth it's largely due to the exaggeration that normally happens in comics. Movies also do this, of course, but comics are just more extreme in how they do it, and a movie that's closely mimicking the comics like this one will look even more exaggerated than most action movies.

 

[TheLongshot]

Also, in some ways, he's able to do these things because he has absolute confidence in his abilities, and he has no fear. That's the idea at least. I thought the jumping off the big building in the beginning was a little over the top, but most of the rest of it is consistant.

Jason

 

[ThomasC]

http://www.superherohype.com/cgi-bin...6290679,78086,