s a boy, Matt Murdock (Scott Terra) endured the taunts of bullies because his washed-up prizefighter father, Jack "The Devil" Murdock (Keith David), didn't want Matt to wind up like him. But running from bullies, Matt ends up blinded in an accident. On the plus side, he acquires new powers that allow him to sense his surroundings, almost as if he has sonar. When Matt's father is brutally murdered, Matt makes it his mission to bring criminals to justice, by any means necessary.
As an adult, Matt (Affleck) now argues against criminals in court as a lawyer by day. But by night, he takes to the rooftops, dressed in red leather, as the vigilante known only as Daredevil. When a rapist (The Invisible Man's Paul Ben-Victor) wins freedom in court, Daredevil pursues him to the seedy bar where he hangs out. Handily defeating the bar's denizens, Daredevil chases the rapist into a subway, where he watches him die.
Lunching the next day with his law partner, Nelson (Jon Favreau), Matt senses the presence of an unusual woman. He catches up with her in a playground, and the two spar, playfully at first, but with increasing vigor, until they are both breathing hard. The woman's name is Elektra (Garner), and she is the daughter of a wealthy Greek industrialist. But the industrialist is no ordinary businessman. He is the confederate of a sinister crime boss, Fisk, who is also known as the Kingpin (Duncan). When Elektra's father tells Kingpin he wants out, Kingpin sends for his most reliable, albeit psychotic, assassin: Bullseye (Farrell).
Newspaper columnist Urich (Joe Pantoliano), meanwhile, has been pursuing police reports about a mysterious vigilante. Though the police deny it, Urich believes that Daredevil is real. And he means to find out who this costumed crimefighter really is.
At a gala banquet, Matt and Elektra find themselves increasingly entangled emotionally. But when Bullseye shows up suddenly, there's hell to pay for Matt/Daredevil, Elektra and the Kingpin.
A superhero saga on the horns of a dilemma
Daredevil is the latest comic-turned-movie from the Marvel Comics juggernaut and brings with it the high-powered star wattage of Affleck as the titular character, Alias darling Garner as his sword-wielding lover/nemesis and hot actor-of-the-moment Farrell as the scenery-chewing Bullseye. It is also the personal work of writer/director Johnson, a longtime fan of the comic series, who fought horn-and-billyclub for the right to bring his own vision of The Man Without Fear to the screen.
That passion is reflected in much of the movie, which adequately brings to life the lurid cityscapes and noirish images of the dark Daredevil myth. But Daredevil suffers in comparison with recent movie versions of Marvel's other, better-loved franchises, Spider-Man and The X-Men, not only because the central mythos is less compelling, but also because Johnson's derivative script fails to plumb the deeper layers of the story.
Daredevil has neither the emotional accuracy of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man nor the resonant subtext of Bryan Singer's X-Men. Rather, Daredevil plays on surfaces, like rain dancing on red leather. Johnson's movie is flashy enough, but its story of a vengeful vigilante redeemed by the love of a woman is too reminiscent of genre movies from Batman to The Crow, with little new to say.
For some, that flashiness may be enough. Whatever reservations comic fans may have had about pretty-boy Affleck, he acquits himself well as the tortured hero, even persuading a skeptical audience that he is indeed the physical powerhouse he pretends to be. Garner, who already displays her trademark mixture of vulnerability and kick-ass martial-arts skills on a weekly basis, does more of the same as the conflicted Elektra. The real delights in the film are due to Farrell, the Irish bad boy who redefines the concept of "over-the-top" acting in the person of his one-dimensional villain, and John Favreau as Murdock's nebbishy pal Foggy Nelson. When Favreau and Affleck banter, it's as if snippets of a Kevin Smith movie have inadvertently found their way into this film.
The action choreography, by Cheung Yan Yuen and his team, is dazzling, and the film's visual effects are impressive, particularly the depiction of Murdock's sensory perceptions—the so-called "Shadow World."
