Daredevil

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

One of the poorest of Marvel Comics adaptations, though still an entertaining action flick. As a kid, Matt Murdock comes into contact with toxic waste that blinds him for life but heightens all his other senses, including his need for justice. When his father is murdered by the mob, he makes it his life's cause to fight crime, by day as a lawyer, by night as the vigilante Daredevil who prowls the streets of New York in a red leather suit and beats up bad guys. This gets him on the radar of mob boss Kingpin (the huge Michael Clarke Duncan (R.I.P. 2012) is perfectly suited for the part, except the tone of his skin is not in sync with the original comic book character, but with such a neat actor, who cares?) and his crazed assassin Bullseye (Colin Farrell) who is ordered to give the Devil his due. Poor Matt also has to deal with the beautiful but deadly Elektra Natchios, a girl he has fallen in love with but who believes his alter ego to be her father's killer. Plenty of interesting characters and an abundance of solid action scenes cannot fully make up for the pale shadow this movie grew to be compared to Marvel franchises like Spider-Man or X-Men at that time. Most of the blame can be assigned to Ben Affleck, who just does a terrible job at making his character a compellingly blind guy tortured by remorse and anger over his father's demise and driven by a relentless need to avenge crime. Similarly, the romance with Elektra feels contrived and is never exposed as much as it needs to be to come over as believable or something the audience needs to care about, despite the dire consequences in store for this supposed passion. At least Kingpin feels like a true menace, while Bullseye is just a delightful amoral and wicked person Farrell plays with apparent appropriate enthusiasm. The Director's Cut, running a good half hour longer than its theatrical counterpart, is the preferred version to watch, adding more depth to the characters and a few more subplots to flesh out the whole, but it cannot compensate for Affleck's feeble performance. Marvel movies hit their lowest ebb with Daredevil's spin-off flick Elektra (2005), which was released as a direct-to-DVD feature in many territories and destroyed the femme fatale character even more eagerly. Director Johnson was responsible for a second disappointing Marvel adaptation with Ghost Rider in 2007.

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan

Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

USA: 20^th Century Fox, 2003