Daredevil Review

"Daredevil" is the latest Marvel Comics character to follow fellow superhero stablemates the X-Men and Spider-Man from the printed page to the silver screen, and stars Ben Affleck as Daredevil, the man without fear, aka blind lawyer Matt Murdock, whose other senses where raised to superhuman levels following the childhood accident that robbed him of his sight. Jennifer Garner (of TV's "Alias") co-stars as his troubled would be paramour & martial arts master Elektra, Michael Clarke Duncan is the larger than life Kingpin of crime, Colin Farrell hams it up magnificently as psychopathic super assassin Bullseye, while Jon Favreau steals every scene he is in as the film's comic relief, our hero's over keen lawyer partner.

The film was something of a labour of love for long time fan Mark Steven Johnson, who spent thousands of dollars of his own money on storyboards that helped convince the powers that be at Fox that he should be allowed to direct his own screenplay. It was a gamble that definitely paid off as Johnson has succeeded in recreating much of the comic's dark mood in a noir-ish tale more reminiscent of Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" than the film's more recent predecessors. Surprisingly brutal and violent (hence the family unfriendly '15' certificate) this is a melodrama that is almost unrelentingly dark in tone. It is also refreshingly short at a mere 100 minutes, although that does mean that the film's almost non stop momentum doesn't allow much time for a great deal of character development, as we're never too far away from the next spectacular set piece. Still, it's a rare thing these days when the worse thing you can say about a movie is that it could benefit from being twenty minutes longer!