A Review of "Daredevil" (2003)

"A quid pro quo and a dosey-do, who is Daredevil? No one knows!"
"A sai and a hi and a howdily-do, I'm deranged now and here to kill you!"

Happy Friday! Yes, November had been barren of the reviews as of late. What with taking a week off after Halloween 2K23 to recharge, producing a review for Hulk from 2003, only to end up taking another week off mistakenly because of Thanksgiving... only one review this month so far and it's already done. But now it's December! and I'm back and ready to roll again... and why not keep the early 2000's superhero movie trend rolling? I don't know. I didn't really have a plan the remainder of the year.

"It is an honor to meet someone with a shinier head than me!"
"Likewise, Bullseye. An honor to meet a fellow baldy."

While Hulk confused and baffled audiences with its rather quirky presentation in 2003, another Marvel-owned property got a silver screen treatment too that same year. Starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Colin Farrell, 2003 saw the first motion picture appearance of (and my first exposure to) the blind lawyer Matt Murdock who moonlights as a Satanically-Catholic-themed vigilante Daredevil, complete with actual horns. Titled simply Daredevil, it was a dark, brooding, moody presentation of the character. Since I was ten years old and hadn't read any Daredevil comics in my life before seeing this movie, I went into the theater with a clean slate mind. I actually came out quite entertained and loved the movie. Now? Twenty (barf) years on? Well, let me walk through the plot, and I'll tell you what I think!

As a child, young Matt Murdock (Scott Terra) is accidentally blinded by radioactive waste shortly after witnessing his father, washed-up prizefighter Jack "The Devil" Murdock (David Keith), extorting money for local mobster Fallon (Mark Margolis). Despite this, Matt's remaining senses are dramatically enhanced, giving him superhuman agility and sonar-like hearing. Feeling responsible for his son's accident, Jack is inspired to abandon his life of crime and recommit to his boxing career, leading to a dramatic comeback. Later, after Fallon reveals that he enabled Jack's comeback by bribing his previous opponents to let him win, he attempts to bribe Jack to throw his next match and has him murdered once he refuses.

"Your honor, I am indeed blind. If you check my
underwear, you will indeed find it inside out and
backwards!"

Years later, an adult Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck) works as an attorney in Hell's Kitchen with his friend Franklin "Foggy" Nelson (Jon Favreau), providing legal representation pro bono to clients whom he believes are actually innocent. By night, Matt fights crime as the costumed vigilante "Daredevil". Ben Urich (Joe Pantoliano), a New York Post reporter who chronicles Daredevil's exploits, attracts attention for a series of articles on "The Kingpin", a shadowy underworld figure who allegedly controls all of New York's organized crime. Unbeknownst to Urich, the Kingpin is actually Wilson Fisk (Michael Clarke Duncan), a brutal mobster who poses as a legitimate businessman. Matt, meanwhile, falls in love with Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner), a Greek-American woman who is very not Greek-American looking that is also skilled in martial arts, unaware that she is the daughter of Fisk's lieutenant Nikolas Natchios (Erick Avari). Later, when Natchios attempts to end his relationship with Fisk, Fisk hires Bullseye (Colin Farrell), a hitman with preternatural aim, to kill him. When Daredevil unsuccessfully attempts to save Natchios from assassination, Bullseye manages to frame Daredevil for his murder by stealing his opponent's distinctive baton and impaling Natchios with it. Afterward, Urich deduces that Matt is Daredevil after realizing that he disguises his baton as a white cane.

Believing Daredevil to be responsible for her father's murder, Elektra attempts to take revenge by killing him. Meanwhile, Bullseye, assigned by Fisk to kill Elektra, who tracks Daredevil down and challenges him to a fight before incapacitating him by stabbing him through the shoulder. Daredevil protests that he did not kill her father, but Elektra does not believe him until she forcibly unmasks him and realizes that he is Matt. Moments later, when Bullseye tracks Elektra down, Matt is forced to watch helplessly as Bullseye kills her. Wounded, Matt takes refuge in a church, but Bullseye ambushes him by exploiting his weakness to loud sound. When the police swarm the church, Bullseye reveals that Kingpin killed Matt's father, leaving behind a rose on his body as a calling card. Soon, Matt gains the upper hand and throws Bullseye from the bell tower after an NYPD ESU sniper shoots him through both hands, depriving him of his powerful aim... uttering the Arnold-esque one liner "Bullseye" as he crashes onto a NYPD squad car. But the movie's still not over! Determined to avenge Elektra, Matt ambushes Fisk in his office. In the ensuing fight, he ultimately triumphs against Fisk's brute strength by using his sonar hearing to see Fisk after he is drenched in rain from Fisk's plumbing system. During their confrontation, Fisk admits that he killed Jack on Fallon's orders and that Elektra's death was nothing but a casualty. As the police arrive to arrest Fisk, he threatens to reveal Daredevil's identity to the world, but Matt points out that no one will ever believe that Daredevil is a blind man. Something that the comic "Born Again" in the Daredevil universe didn't care to try and use as a prevention device.

"What am I, Matt? Foggy Nelson or a Happy Hogan variant?"
"Or you could be a Foggy variant too."
"THAT'S THE GENIUS OF ALL THIS!"

Some time after Elektra's death, Matt visits the roof of his apartment, where the two of them first kissed, and unexpectedly finds Elektra's necklace with her name engraved upon it in braille, hinting that she might still be alive. Urich prepares to publish an article revealing Daredevil's identity, but decides against it at the last minute, finally accepting that Daredevil's efforts have improved the city. He exits the New York Post office into the night outside and sees Daredevil atop a roof, whispering "Go get 'em, Matt", to which Daredevil nods his head and takes off, leaping off the building to pursue his nightly crimefighting routine. Elsewhere, a heavily-bandaged Bullseye wakes up in a heavily-guarded hospital room and kills a fly off-camera with a syringe needle... proving he's still got his deadly aiming skills!

That is 2003's brooding, angsty presentation of the Marvel comics character of the same name, Daredevil. What do I think this many years on? Well, it's still a solid enough movie. I'm still entertained about ninety-percent of the time. There are some things this far on that suck me out of the movie. Jennifer Garner's casting, the severely dated nu metal soundtrack, the biker-outfit design of Daredevil's costume, Kevin Smith's random-ass cameo; it is one of those superhero movies that while it's still watchable and still entertaining, it isn't exactly timeless. It does feel dated both in cinematography, costume design, and soundtrack. That and Jon Favreau as Foggy Nelson seems so out of place given his future big-time role in kickstarting the Marvel Cinematic Universe and playing "Happy Hogan" in said Universe. Colin Farrell as Bullseye is so comically over-the-top, even his performance feels like a dated performance of when comic book movies were campy and cartoony. Same vein as Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, if you ask me, but much more comical. Like Dafoe is at an eight out of ten... Farrell is about fifteen, and an eleven in his quieter, duller moments.

"Alright, asshole. No more bullshit. Sign up for
the Capitol One credit card, motherfucker, or
I'm going to cut your dick off!"

Where Daredevil from 2003 truly suffers is by comparison to the 2015 Netflix series that came after it. I've done reviews far back in the day in 2018 of the first two seasons of that show (here and here, respectively) that I think very fondly of and did the character and story of Daredevil far better justice. While it too was dark and violent, it obviously has more of a timeless feel. It's brutal, it's unforgiving at times, and while it feels borderline R-Rated like this movie does, it feels so without, again, the cheesiness of the era smothered all over it. I haven't reviewed season 3 yet, but I should go back and do a re-review on those first two seasons before doing that one. Plus, with the MCU set to release Daredevil: Born Again very soon, starring Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio in their roles as Daredevil and Kingpin, respectively, I anticipate it heavily.

I would say as a fun afternoon watch to remember a bygone era of superhero films, you should check out Daredevil from 2003, but I recommend viewing the director's cut of the movie if you can. It tries to restore director Mark Steven Johnson's original R-Rated take, adding a couple "fucks" as well as heavy cleavage shots, and it actually inserts a whole subplot involving Coolio that was cut from the theatrical cut and shows Matt and Foggy, psh, I don't know, BEING lawyers! A pretty integral part of the Daredevil mythos that the PG-13 theatrical cut just dropped for no reason. You seem them be lawyers for about three minutes, then nothing. Go check  out Daredevil from 2003. Ten year old me gives it a "YAY!" but thirty year old me gives it a much more modest and grounded "Yay." Ha.