Daredevil: Movie vs. TV
The film did not do the character justice. Thank goodness for the Netflix series.
The greatest thing to come out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was the first season of Daredevil on Netflix. I enjoyed the next two seasons as well, but that first season was especially satisfying.
The 13-episode season provided something that most stories need: room to breathe. A lack of breathing room was my main criticism of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It’s also my main criticism of the 2003 Daredevil movie starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. (Spoilers ahead.)
That film came out when superhero movies were gaining in popularity but weren’t yet a sure thing. Daredevil had (it seemed) one shot at becoming a mainstream character outside of comic books, and this movie gives the appearance of rushing through and trying to hit as many highlights as possible in case it never gets another opportunity to commit these classic comic book moments to film.
The result is oddly frantic and choppy:
Here’s his origin. Here’s him meeting Elektra. Here’s him falling in love with Elektra. Here’s Bullseye. Here’s the Kingpin. Here’s Bullseye killing Elektra’s father. Here’s Bullseye killing Elektra. Here’s Ben Urich discovering Daredevil’s secret identity. Here’s Daredevil fighting the Kingpin. The End. Do we get a sequel?
Everything’s condensed to the point where nothing has time to acquire any meaning. They even abbreviate the timeline so that Matt is meeting Elektra in the present day as opposed to having met her back in college, like in the comics. Movie Matt and Elektra have no long history—they have a short romance in the immediate moment. Instead of two old lovers reconnecting after many years and finding themselves on opposite sides of the law, the movie gives us a short-term relationship that’s based on physical attraction as much as anything.
Nor does Matt’s friendship with Foggy receive much development. Any sense of history is missing here as well. Movie Matt and Foggy come across as friendly co-workers. We don’t know how Matt feels about keeping his secret from Foggy or how Foggy might feel about being lied to.
The movie attempts to introduce some history between Daredevil and the Kingpin by having a young Wilson Fisk be the one who murders Matt’s father. It’s a significant change from the comics, and it’s the same change that the first Tim Burton Batman movie enacted: To force a personal connection between Batman and the Joker, a pre-Joker Jack Napier also had to be the mugger who murdered the Waynes.
But since Fisk was merely a hired hitman and not someone who personally chose to kill Jack Murdock, the present-day Kingpin becomes merely a symbol of Matt’s past tragedy. That’s a start, but in this case, it does not result in a fully formed character (despite the best efforts of the late Michael Clarke Duncan, who absolutely could have been an excellent Kingpin with better material).
The whole thing was disappointing. Daredevil has been one of my favorite characters of any medium since the ’90s.
He’s like a Batman who has to work ten times harder. He’s blind. He grew up poor, and even as a lawyer, he’s not always flush with cash. His mental health has faltered more than once. He’s frequently pushed to the breaking point, and he sometimes comes closing to giving up—but he ultimately pulls through. He gets knocked down, he gets up again, you’re never going to keep him down. Daredevil is perseverance personified.
In 2003, I thought many more people were going to discover my favorite Marvel character. But for that, I would have to wait until 2015, when Daredevil debuted on Netflix.
This show has patience and restraint. It takes its time developing characters, building relationships, and establishing a sense of history. Here, Matt and Foggy have a long-standing brotherly bond, so it matters when they come into conflict with each other. We get to know Wilson Fisk gradually over the course of the season as it earns the inevitable showdown. And we don’t even meet Elektra until the second season or Bullseye until the third.
The fight choreography is amazing. These aren’t cartoon characters pummeling each other without consequence—these are humans who bleed and need to catch their breath. The fights are as brutal and realistic as they can be without descending into gratuitous gore.
And that theme song is perfection:
But the show’s real key ingredient is love. Every major character, good or bad or in between, loves something and/or someone—a neighborhood, a friend, a relative, a job, a significant other—and that love contrasts against the dark storylines and violence, preventing any bleak nihilism.
Matt loves Foggy as a brother and develops romantic feelings for Karen. Karen develops feelings for Matt. Matt and Foggy love the law and justice. Fisk loves Vanessa, and Vanessa loves Fisk. Matt and Fisk love Hell’s Kitchen. Jack Murdock loved his son. Ben loves his wife and journalism and cares about Karen as well. Claire loves being a nurse and helping people. Even Fisk’s right-hand man, Wesley, has genuine affection for his employer.
They care about people, places, and things, all of which give us reasons to care about the characters and the story.
So, Daredevil received quite a drubbing in his first bout in the mainstream ring, but he came back from behind for a thrilling victory in Round Two. That’s kind of how he rolls.
History Post
Teddy Roosevelt was not one for a quiet, peaceful retirement:
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