Daredevil Review

 [Music] hi and welcome to the dynamic duel podcast a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between marvel and dc by comparing their characters in stat based battle simulations i’m marvelous joe and i’m his twin brother johnny dc and in this episode we are going to be reviewing the 2003 movie daredevil directed and written by mark steven johnson starring ben affleck as the titular character it’s a tie into our previous episode where we found out who would win in a fight between the suicide squad and the defenders now daredevil has recently been a prominent member of the defenders and so we and our executive producers thought it would be cool to review this film now it’s uh it’s not a great movie when it first came out i really liked it but it has not aged well especially in contrast to the netflix daredevil tv show yeah yeah i mean i was a big defender of this movie back when it first came out but now it’s obviously bad and not like in a fun kind of way in a heartbreaking kind of way yeah kind of that’s a good way to put it we’ll get into the details of the movie later on this episode before that we’re going to go over the comic book movie news from the past week of which we had just one major news item uh and that is the phase four trailer essentially that marvel put out they gave us our first look at the eternals and gave us a bunch of new news regarding the upcoming phase four mcu slate as always we list our segment times in our episode description so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic and just reminder if you guys want to support the show there are three ways you can do it the first way is to follow this podcast on instagram facebook or twitter particularly instagram right because we’re trying to get to a thousand followers there you can go to our website dynamicduel.com to find links to all of our social media accounts the second way to support the show is to rate us or review us on your platform of choice uh you can also support us on patreon of course where for as low as two dollars a month you can get perks like access to our discord chat where you get a chat with jonathan and i and a bunch of other fans and get bonus content it’s a lot of fun so check it out at patreon.com dynamic duel as we mentioned the past couple of episodes apple podcast subscriptions has made a way for podcast creators to monetize their podcasts by putting their shows behind a paywall dynamic duel won’t be doing that our plan is to keep this show free but that’s only if we get enough patrons otherwise we’re just throwing money away so our goal is to get to  comes out in mid-july if we can do that this podcast will stay free and again those who sign up get access to our bonus perks so it’s a win-win thanks to everyone who signs up for that and supports the show in other ways we want to give a particular shout out to kevin odilon who gave us a review and new patrons nathaniel and quinn smith you guys are the best but with that out of the way quick to the no prize so a no prize is an award that marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans our version the dynamic duel no prize is a digital award that we post on social media that i personally draw for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week last week we asked what new dc or marvel comic book character to come out in the past five years do you hope to see in a live action project and this tied into the cw’s first look at naomi their upcoming television series the character of naomi only came out in 2019 so we were curious to see what other new characters you hoped to see in live action yeah we got a lot of great answers we have a list of honorable mentions to get through as well as a couple of no prize winners so let’s get to it our first honorable mention goes to cj craft who said hey guys cj craft and i’d want to see the character honey badger brought into the mcu but maybe like a cartoon or r rated movie where you can get away with doing a lot of gore and make it like the logan movie but have x23 as the mentor instead of wolverine just like in the comics thanks and keep up the great work your podcast is awesome thanks cj yeah for those who may not know honey badger is a new marvel character who is a clone of a clone essentially like how x23 is a clone of wolverine honeybadger is a clone of x23 and she only has one claw but yeah i could totally see that working in a sequel to the logan movie i don’t even know this character existed this is like wolverine over saturation at this point i don’t know about that i mean you also have dawkin and old man logan yeah that’s true but you know wolverine’s a badass character so the more the merrier you know i guess i’d like to see wolverine family in the same way there’s like a bat family or something like that a wolverine core our next honorable mention goes to matthew gonzalez who said hey guys matthew gonzalez here as far as the question of the week goes i definitely want to see cosmic ghost rider because with redoing punisher and nicholas cage’s ghost rider being a flop great way to introduce him into guardians of the galaxy maybe some other cosmic stuff yeah i think they’re pretty awesome i like this answer because i love the look of cosmic ghost rider alone i don’t know how cosmic ghost rider would work in the mcu considering we haven’t gotten solid versions of frank castle or johnny blaze in the films yet but down the line i would totally love to see this happen essentially this character is frank castle gone to hell making a deal with the devil becoming ghost writer and then ghost rider becoming a herald of galactus it’s a cool concept our final honorable mention goes to aj dunkerley who said hi i’m aj i’m a new listener i think a character that just came out in the past five years that should appear in live action should be hydra captain america i feel that with contessa valentina allegra whatever the hell her name is appearing on falcon winter soldier and the fact that amelia clark just got casted i think she’s viper and i think they could do a huge comeback for hydra and i think hydrocap will be leading them new listener aj dunkerley coming out with a controversial choice right at the gate but i’m into it i like a lot of his ideas here i didn’t even consider that amelia clark could be playing viper i just had her set as queen varankhi but it also made me think that maybe she’s playing abigail brand the head of sword and then sword gets infiltrated by hydra or something like that and if this re-emergence of hydra found a way to rewrite reality it could definitely be a way for chris evans to come back into the mcu first as an evil version that the new captain america would have to fight and then eventually maybe come back into the role if that’s what they wanted to do that’s how they could do it oh yeah totally because they could also erase his past and make him young again exactly they’re gonna do that right that’s how you get chris evans back if you wanted to do that right now i’m just really attached to sam wilson captain america and i want to see that go for a long while for sure we want to thank shane habezin and mark  voicemail loved your answer but this week’s no prize goes to jose m and dustin belcum who both gave the same answer they said what up guys this is jose first time caller uh and the new character i would like to see would be sideways from dc uh i think he’s got an interesting background he’s latino he’s an orphan he was adopted by white parents and i think to say the dynamic alone would make him very interesting he also got spun off from the dark multiverse metal event and i think if they eventually work backwards from that it would be pretty interesting to see in live action uh yeah let me know what you guys think hey dynamic duel dustin balcom here and the only right answer is sideways you guys haven’t read that comic in dc comics yet you need to it’s a character that even old uh grumpy marvelous joke like grumpy get off my lawn dustin balcom now i wanted to choose these guys not only because they both vouched for this new character but also because their answers made me look into the character i had never read him before and now i really want to read it what sideways about it’s about this kid who falls into like an interdimensional portal during the dark knights metal event which was awesome and he ends up getting these teleportation powers you know he could create portals as a result of that hmm so he’s like nightcrawler he’s like what happens if you mix nightcrawler with like miles morales that’s pretty cool and it’s gotten pretty good reviews so i’m definitely gonna check it out thanks to jose and dustin for giving us this week’s winning answer and if you the listener want a shot at winning your own no prize stay tuned to later on this episode when we’ll be asking another question of the week and now that that’s done on to the news [Music] alright this past week marvel released a neat little video called marvel studios celebrates the movies the first half of it was basically reminding viewers that hey marvel’s still around we haven’t released a movie for a while but we have a lot coming down the pike so get hyped now yeah it’s basically an appeal to go to the movies because the box office has been down it’s still down and i think they really just wanted to get people hyped for the movie going experience before they start releasing their films right yeah and this was a good way to do it it convinced me for sure the second half of this video kind of teased what is to come including the upcoming black widow film chongqing the legend of the 10 rings and we got our first look at the upcoming eternals movie it was just a few shots but it was pretty cool looking yeah that sword made of light that angelina jolie was wielding bad ass yes yeah the cinematography looks awesome even shots with like salma hayek riding a horse it just looks sweeping and epic oh yeah shut the [ __ ] up all the actors just look fantastic kamel nanjiani richard madden gemma chan they look like god like immortal beings for sure i’m definitely more interested in the story just from you i haven’t heard what the eternals are all about but also apparently disney is really really happy with the finished film and even kevin feige was joking that this was gonna win next year’s best picture yeah i’m not sure if chloe zao would win those oscars back to back but it would be cool if she did and now we know that she’s a really talented director that shot of a group of them standing in front of like this tall ancient building looks really cool where makari like runs in from the side right right yeah the next big news to come out of this video was the title reveal for the black panther sequel well kind of forever which is kind of a touching title absolutely and i think it speaks to kind of the legacy of the franchise saying that yeah you know we lost chadwick boseman but he lives in our hearts forever you know yeah yeah totally marvel did release a log line for this movie saying that wakanda forever will continue to explore the incomparable world of wakanda and all the rich and varied characters introduced in the first film so instead of taking a specific look at the character of black panther is basically a movie that’s going to explore the broader nation which i’m all about because there was just such incredible world building in the first movie yeah yeah totally that movie is going to come out on july  and it’s gonna be followed by the marvels which is coming out later in  yeah previously this was billed as captain marvel 2 but now we know the official title of it right and that was actually the biggest surprise for me watching this video i was genuinely shocked that they removed the name captain marvel from this franchise and i don’t know if it’s because people aren’t huge fans of the character or if they’re really trying to play up the inclusion of characters like ms marvel and photon or spectrum or whatever you want to call her monica rambo because their logos also show up within the marvel’s movie logo yeah yeah that was a surprise that was pretty cool it makes me wonder to the extent that they’re all going to share screen time and are they going to formally form a team called the marvels you know there’s never been a team called the marvels within the comics there has been a series called the marvels but that was kind of an offshoot of the marvel’s comic book series that goes into the history of the marvel universe written by kurt busick and drawn by alex ross but both monica rambo and carol danvers have been part of a team called the ultimates in the comics that have fought off extra dimensional and intergalactic threats and i think that’s where this might go yeah that would be awesome and honestly this news makes me look forward even more towards shows like miss marvel which i really wasn’t too excited about before we also got a release date for the upcoming ant-man and the wasp quantum mania movie that’s going to come out on february 17th  the galaxy vol 3 is going to come out may 5th of that same year i forget when is the guardians of the galaxy christmas special supposed to come out christmas the prior year in 2022. okay cool we got another little small tease of the fantastic four movie logo but uh no release date for that one yet the video ends saying see you at the movies again pushing people to get their asses in seats at the cinema and i think that’s a really smart move on marvel’s behalf you know they also recently moved their disney plus marvel show like the upcoming loki from fridays to wednesdays just so it doesn’t compete with the box office can’t wait to get back i’m all vaccinated now as am i as of yesterday my arm’s [ __ ] sore as hell but this look at marvel’s phase 4 brings us to our question of the week which marvel phase 4 film are you most looking forward to and why record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail your message can be up to 30 seconds long and don’t forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast we’ll pick our favorite answer and draw that person a dynamic duel no prize that will post to social media be sure to answer before may 15th but that does it for the news for this episode so let’s go ahead and get into our main event where we review the 2003 film daredevil all right daredevil is a 2003 film starring ben affleck and jennifer garner produced by 20th century fox and written and directed by mark steven johnson now you know what you’re thinking and the answer is yes it is the very same mark steven johnson who directed simon birch that directed this film what johnson was a huge fan of the daredevil comics and i think that really showed in this film but i also think that he was woefully under qualified to tackle a production of this magnitude the result is a movie that’s jam-packed full of small fan service moments that drive comic book readers like me wild but unfortunately it’s not a great film as a whole now spoiler warning for those who have never seen 2003’s daredevil this review as all of our reviews do we’ll be discussing plot points from the movie and if you’ve never seen it don’t just watch the daredevil netflix show instead because it’s so much better yeah yeah  better the netflix show was until i watched the theatrical cut of this movie again for the first time in probably close to a decade i think i had deluded myself into thinking this daredevil movie was recommendable for the longest time because of all the great fan service moments and cool action beats it had but it wasn’t until i watched the theatrical again this past week that it really hit home how disconnected and not great it truly was yeah it’s from a bygone era of when superhero movies didn’t even really try to be good movies like they were just there to be fun yeah popcorn flicks and there are definitely parts of this film that are fun especially if you’re a daredevil fan like you mentioned but most of it i think to the casual moviegoer was just too gritty too campy and too many moments that are like what the hell yeah exactly like now i would classify this movie as just meh you know but for the longest time i always thought of the film as fine you know adequate i remember seeing it in theaters and walking away you know slightly disappointed but mostly content i first learned that they were making a daredevil film around the time the first spider-man movie came out in 2002 and i remember being super excited but i didn’t really read or see anything else about the movie until i saw the teaser for it in front of the minority report film and i was like so super stoked particularly because of the imagery in that preview where he’s like standing on the building next to the stone angels right exactly yeah mark steven johnson if nothing else created a film that really captured the gothic art style of the comics particularly the early marvel knights daredevil comics with this film’s dark color scheme and a lot of catholic symbolism throughout which is totally appropriate given the character’s strong catholic background yeah there were some really cool fan service moments seeing like daredevil like at the top of a cathedral hugging across and bleeding that was really cool yeah yeah it’s a lot of those little touches that really show that mark steven johnson is a true fan of the comics because that shot was taken from a cover of daredevil during joe casada’s run right and same thing with like the last frame of the film that was also another joke i saw to cover right yeah mark steven johnson definitely made a movie here for the fans and while you can’t hold that against him fan service alone does not make a good movie you need the rest of those quality elements like a solid screenplay strong performances you know people want to get lost in a story and just winking to fans while cool is not a story it almost takes you out of the movie yeah strong fan service in a film i equate to getting a gift that’s exactly what you wanted it’s nice but you know what’s better than getting a gift you always wanted getting a gift you never knew you always wanted and that’s what makes things like the dark knight film and the daredevil netflix series so good they played to the fans but they also surprised fans with their original stories and with their quality oh yeah totally there were no surprises here no in this film at all and that’s kind of a fine line to straddle you know and it’s something i think that’s really difficult for studios to do exactly one of the good things i thought about this movie was actually its level of violence it really pushed the pg-13 rating even by today’s standards i think this is a borderline rated film because you have like sharokin going into jugular’s people getting punched unconscious sighs going through hands throats getting slit the violence made the film feel very mature and adult compared to the more family-friendly spider-man and x-men films at the time as a teenager i remember watching this film in theaters being like yeah a movie that speaks to me as a mature human being this isn’t one of those baby films superheroes aren’t for kids you know i actually wrote a paper in college about how superheroes weren’t for kids which is so naive at the time because really comic books are for everyone right at the time i just really wanted to get past the stigma that i felt people had about me that i was into comics and therefore you know immature childish exactly but there are comics out there for every level of reader daredevil though due to its nature i think is definitely one of those more mature titles and i like how this movie straddled that line in terms of its rating yeah i think at the time studios were probably apprehensive about releasing a rated r superhero film yeah you know you could do that now with movies like deadpool deadpool proved the concept but at the time you definitely couldn’t do it with daredevil and you definitely couldn’t do it with a star like ben affleck right outside of the symbolism and violence there were things i didn’t love about this movie visually the cinematography was freaking bizarre in some spots like the film was trying to be experimental and how it presented certain shots i could appreciate a good dutch angle now and then to get like an uneasy feeling of things but there were some shots here like action shots that were straight up sideways somewhere like upside down through a reflection in a puddle it was just like way too much like it was trying to be avant-garde but it came across as more like incomprehensible most times yeah it made it look like they didn’t know what they were doing absolutely mark stephen johnson really didn’t know what he was doing this was the first movie he’s ever made like this and so he was probably like oh i’m gonna like make people feel like they’re blind by not being able to understand what they’re seeing if the netflix show taught us anything is that when it comes to action it’s way better to just be clear and simple with the camera work let the fights unfold in front of the viewer you know i’ll take the netflix daredevil hallway fight any day over this film’s josie’s bar fight where the camera was just spinning every which way oh yeah totally good fight choreography goes a long way i think it’s hard to shoot i think it’s hard to do i think good action in general is hard to do which is sort of why you had christopher nolan kind of cheating with it and batman begins yeah that action was also unintelligible it was bad good actions should have a certain flow to it and when you do too many cuts and too many shots like this movie like daredevil it loses that flow yeah i totally agree another sore spot for this film that i really noticed this last time i watched it was its dialogue it was so overwritten and obvious and cliche some lines like almost bordered on puns but everything was delivered seriously lines like justice is blind but it can be heard and like life flashes before your eyes even for a blind man i think that kind of dialogue works really well in a comic but it’s just too ridiculous in a film i actually think this script would have made a great graphic novel and i think it’s an example of how comics can get away with more melodramatic writing than films can that’s true yeah i mean saying it out loud does make it a little bit more ridiculous yeah i hope justice is found before justice finds you and speaking of unnatural dialogue like i did not like this film’s over reliance on narration that’s another thing that comics can get away with that internal monologue you know in modern films narration is just lazy and it’s so much better to let the audience build their own sort of internal dialogue through what’s shown on screen yeah in screenwriting narration is frowned upon it’s sort of seen as a shortcut when you can tell the same thing cinematically right show don’t tell exactly although i think it semi-worked in this film for the first half at least because he was telling you the story of his life right yeah they did do a narrative device where it was kind of like a flashback so the narration may have been appropriate there but it was still delivered horribly by ben affleck he was doing like this weird like breathy voice like i’ll never forget what i saw because it was the last thing i’d ever see you know it was like oh god dude just stop talking like this speak normally he was practicing for batman yep maybe i thought his batman voice was actually much better it was you know digitally altered but yeah i love that for the character speaking of that there are so many parallels here to batman in this movie i feel like yeah from him like holding his father in the alley in the street i never loved that you know daredevil was not a kid when his father died he was like a late teenager he had already gone through all of his stick training and everything like that my 10 year old daughter said that she was like what is this batman i was like exactly now you know now you know well this film and the netflix show both made that mistake of killing the father too soon and also the moment where he was like casting the shadow to like instill fear i felt like that was batman too that was fine daredevil does that all the time too does he yeah okay that’s fine now we chose to talk about the theatrical cut for this review over the director’s cut because the theatrical cut is what most people have seen if you weren’t aware there is a director’s cut of this movie that is marginally better yeah it has coolio in it i mean it does but that part’s almost a wash because the side plot with coolio does add more legal drama to the film but coolio is so bad at acting that almost negates it but you also get more investigative type stuff in the director’s cut you get longer action scenes and a better structured story overall the director’s cut is rated r because it has more violence some language and a decent case of side boob oh from who some random actress in josie’s bar dank it the theatrical cut did include more romance scenes like the love scene that was in this movie i am yeah but this theatrical cut doesn’t explain well enough the whole daredevil kingpin relationship one of my biggest problems with the story of this movie is that you know daredevil’s trying to find the kingpin because he’s trying to stop crime but he acts like there’s a personal connection against the villain and once they meet those personal connections are all set up when it’s revealed that kingpin killed his father and everything like that as if this were a story of vengeance but none of that relationship is very well defined well the thing is is that we knew that wilson fisk killed daredevil’s father before daredevil did yeah it’s dramatic irony the audience knows something the protagonist doesn’t but it’s not good dramatic irony right yeah exactly kingpin doesn’t mention daredevil until he’s talking to bullseye about him and that’s like well over an hour into the film but prior to that we’re not even sure if fisk is aware of the vigilante yeah he’s putting a stop to a lot of the crime that he’s implementing within the city it would have been good to get a scene where kingpin is like reading about daredevil and addressing the fact that daredevil’s causing all these problems for him you know as comic book fans we know that these characters are mortal enemies but like to casual moviegoers i feel like that relationship is entirely ill-defined but speaking about the characters let’s talk more about them in our character breakdown now matt murdock aka daredevil was played by ben affleck i know a lot of people had problems when ben affleck was first cast in this role but i personally never had trouble seeing him as an action star i don’t understand the hate for ben affleck people hated him even when this movie came out he was definitely oversaturated at the time and he had that whole like g-lead jennifer lopez tabloid drama that was going on around the time but to me he always looked like your typical action star yeah and he pulled off a pretty good looking matt murdock in this film he definitely looked the part yeah i actually was excited about ben affleck’s casting at the time because i had read his forward introduction that he had done for kevin smith’s guardian devil trade paperback collection right right he’s definitely a fan of the character and i think that’s why he took the role yeah and i was a bigger fan of his matt murdock acting in this movie than i was of his daredevil i think his daredevil was a little bit too a little bit hammy but his matt murdock was pretty charming that said i thought his costume was awesome his costume is [ __ ] amazing in this movie i know a lot of people didn’t like the whole leather angle but to me that totally worked it looks so good on film the way it shines in lighting and the color is just gorgeous the entire design of his costume including his billy club i thought was really well done here and it was designed by james atchison who also did the sam raimi’s spider-man costume he’s a fantastic designer and i think he’s the one that really modernized superhero costumes for the current era oh yeah totally i actually think that this costume is better than the netflix daredevil costume oh yeah i agree and it’s definitely more comics accurate there’s just something so damn like aesthetic and streamlined about ben affleck’s suit that i really like i love the lenses i love that the studio wanted to include the lenses i’m still waiting for batman to have a set of lenses built into his cowl yeah i guess it made it hard for acting but you know the character’s blind so maybe it added to ben affleck’s performance yeah there you go the billy club design was really well done the way it had like the angel and demon at the tip of the cane and how when he twisted it it would break into the nunchucks with like the long cable between them yeah really well done here was really pleased with that because daredevil’s billy club has always been one of the most fascinating things about the character i think just how it works and how he’s able to use it really good billy club usage with like grappling and swinging and the line going everywhere joe quesada style yes yeah i love that [ __ ] it’s so cool looking now ben affleck’s arc in this movie was to save the city but he ended up saving his soul or something like that it’s a little bit vague and not quite convincing he talked about how elektra was the one to save his soul and i’m wondering how the hell that happened basically he was struggling with the idea that he was the bad guy and so by the end he decided not to kill wilson fisk the way he [ __ ] straight up murdered jose quesada at the beginning of the film yeah right i’m not sure how elektra influenced that because she was every bit as lethal as he was if not more so so it was just all platitudes he was saying things that really had no basis within the story i guess she made him want to be a better person maybe but i’m not sure how you’re right she didn’t stop him from killing he did it on his own and then like attributed that to her in his end dialogue when you can’t even get the main character’s arc right how is there any hope for the rest of the film let’s move on to elektra nachios who was played by jennifer garner now jennifer garner i think was fine in the role she definitely looks greek i think she certainly evokes strength uh what she doesn’t really evoke though was the seductive side of the character what to me i think of elektra as like the sultry assassin you know and i think a lodi young in the netflix show really played that role well that’s true that’s true because elodie was this like femme fatale i do have to say though jennifer garner freaking crushes it with those sighs oh hell yeah she’s such a talented physical actress her size were cool i i wish her costume was a little bit more true to the comics though yeah she was like wearing pants i really just wish the costume was red i wasn’t a fan of the black look i know this is like her origin story and everything like that and it would be hard to justify a red costume over like a stealthy black one but it’s not like the costume she was wearing was like a practical outfit no right now so if you like you’re gonna put her in a bustier and leather pants you may as well add that extra touch of making it red at the very least it’s not believable to begin with but overall i do think that her character was pretty true to the comics i think she had a good arc it was a simple arc there wasn’t much to it but they pulled it off fall in love with man father gets killed give vengeance and then she gets killed and then goes on to make a shitty movie yeah that’s that’s the next step [Laughter] let’s move on to wilson fisk aka kingpin who was played by michael clark duncan i really liked michael clark duncan in this role he was so physically imposing way more physically imposing than vincent d’onofrio from the netflix series i just wish michael clark duncan had been given better material to work with here because i think he would have nailed it i agree i think all the problems with kink pain in this film is all on the page he’s so generic super super and i really miss michael clark duncan he was a phenomenal actor you know he got a chance to prove that in the green mile and there really wasn’t enough of him in this movie absolutely he needed to be established more as a physical threat early on which they kind of do in the director’s cut but even that wasn’t enough they also needed to establish his motivations more what motivations he didn’t have any motivations in this movie exactly he was just generic mob boss who at some point developed a vendetta against daredevil i love the backstory that we got of the character in the netflix oh my gosh yeah that’s what we needed here that show is so good but again i do prefer michael clark duncan’s imposing nature in this movie over vincent d’onofrio’s i think both of them are pretty scary let’s talk about bullseye who is played by colin farrell colin farrell is a great actor i like him in a lot of the stuff that i’ve seen this is probably my least favorite role that he’s ever done it seems like he had a lot of fun with the role but he was just so over the top that i couldn’t find myself enjoying it as a matter of fact like sometimes i’d get even annoyed with some of the quirky mannerism things that he was doing in this movie yeah and it’s weird because i think like you know there was some eye twitching and stuff like that that he had but heath ledger also did that with the joker he just somehow did it better he did it more convincingly heath ledger added subtlety to it there was nothing subtle about colin farrell’s performance in this movie oh yeah definitely not and it was like he was trying to be a villain from like the old adam west batman television show with how zany and crazy those guys were yeah that’s what he was doing here yeah just a two-dimensional character like no motivations other than oh he made me miss i never miss yeah we got the motivations of backstory of the character in the netflix series that was really well done oh yeah and bullseye was scary in the netflix show in this film he was a cartoon character yeah and because of that he felt really out of place when they were trying to go for like gritty realism what did you think of bullseye’s costume it kind of looked like they didn’t really try with it they just went completely different direction and it’s not a bad direction it’s just different the scarification thing was unique it definitely sold him just an appearance as this madman i didn’t mind that but i wasn’t entirely sold on the jacket i guess i think there was a better adaptation they could have done that was both truer to the comics and more functional let’s move on to foggy nelson who is played by john favreau who we know as happy hogan from the iron man films and as the director of the first two iron man movies i thought he was great comedic relief in this movie and that’s all he was really in this film i would have loved to have seen him tie into the plot a little bit more yeah maybe help from a legal perspective in some way well you would love the director’s cut then oh that’s what he does yeah okay yeah i need to watch that yeah i would say the director’s cut is as different from the theatrical cut as the ultimate edition of bvs is from that theatrical cut really yes if you guys haven’t seen it yet i would recommend that version but that’s all the main actors for this movie let’s go ahead and get into the story highlights now the opening credits for this film i thought were really well done and clever like how the names were written out in braille pulled out from the skyscraper city lights that was cool that was genius i thought when i first saw that in movie theaters i was like oh this is going to be a perfect daredevil movie little did i know i really wish that movies would go back to like the real stylized opening credits yeah for like spider-man like daredevil yeah they were really cool yeah nowadays the mcu just gets straight into the movie before even showing the studio cards yeah now they wait to show like the logo of the film and like the flashy credits until after the movie right before the final credits yeah but the opening credits are just such a good opportunity to get a feel for the vibe of what you’re about to see you know the movie starts off with ben affleck in the church injured from his fight with elektra and bullseye it goes into flashback where we learn his origin when he gets toxic chemicals splash into his eyes as a kid and gets radar senses now the radar senses in this movie were depicted through computer generated constructs which was interesting but that’s never really how i imagined it from the books i really like how the netflix series depicted the radar senses as this world on fire type thing where you’re not just seeing the visual aspect of things the netflix show also kind of visualized smells and temperatures and things like that that said i really did like the hospital scene where he experiences his powers for the first time yeah that was really well done especially in the theaters with the surround sound and everything like that it was amazing yeah really great experience in the theater and in that hospital seeing how like the church bells kind of cleared away all the noise that was beautiful yeah you know so small touches that mark steven johnson injected into this movie that kind of save it as matt murdock recoups from his accident his father recoups as a boxer and gets told to throw a match for the mob boss fallon he refuses in order to be an example for his son and ends up getting killed for that it’s a great origin heartbreaking yeah i’ve always really liked daredevil’s origin i really liked the actor that they got to play his father yes i thought that he really sold the lines of like you hit nothing but the books and stuff like that yeah he had a real tough new yorker vibe going from there the movie goes into the present day where we see matt as a lawyer he’s not able to convict jose quezada and after the trial we get his first reference to the kingpin where he’s like kingpin’s gotta be fought in the bill and i feel like to general audiences i’m not sure if they understand what that line means as comic fans we know that kingpin is the head of new york city crime but we never get quite enough explanation as to what daredevil’s motivations are or feelings are about the kingpin he’s just after him you think he would have interrogated jose casada as to who the kingpin was and his whereabouts some kind of mention would have helped i think from there we see daredevil suit up and go onto the rooftops and attack jose quesada and his goons at josie’s bar now the scene where he’s running across rooftops i thought was cool but i didn’t like how he was able to just leap across the streets like he doesn’t have super leaping ability which was like a power that they seem to give him in this movie yeah he did say that his sense of touch gave him like superhuman strength during his like narration but i was like since when in the comics his senses don’t give him super strength but he can negate pain in his ability to focus his senses still that’s not gonna help you jump off of a four-story building land on the street right now break your damn legs yeah there were some elements of the josie’s bar fight scene that i really liked that i felt were clever like when he like surfs one bad guy down a staircase railing and how he like rides some ceiling fan blades up to stand on top of it there was some creative stuff here that you can only really do with the character of daredevil and i thought that was handled well we got to hear nickelback during this fight scene [Laughter] the movie soundtrack was good for its time i appreciated it when it came out because it was a lot of the same music that i listened to which was new metal and rock and stuff like that but nowadays it just dates the film so much super dated yeah yeah movies have to stop doing that it’s cool in the time it’s not cool for any other time daredevil chases quesada into the subway station and freaking knocks the guy into the tracks where he’s cut in half which is so antithetical to the character of daredevil this was the biggest thing i hated about this movie because he would never do it and yeah the movie was trying to be about how he’s not killing anymore you know he like learned the error of his ways but he never would have started to begin with daredevil has always been the one hero that never kills because of his religion right right he’s a devout catholic exactly they totally dropped the ball on that story point there and i hated the flaming logo at the end of this scene like it made no sense like was he carrying around a vial of like flammable liquid that he would just pour i don’t know it was it was really dumb it’s dumb from there we go to daredevil’s layer i did think it was really cool how we got into the layer with the three spinning padlocks i also liked that he slept in a sensory deprivation tank that was clever because that was never in the comics the next day we see matt and foggy in the coffee shop where elektra walks in and he hits on her follows her out to a playground and they fight each other worst fight scene in comic book movie history it’s so cringe you know like it’s all done tongue-in-cheek and it’s supposed to be playful and these are two superhero characters like flirting with each other i guess that’s how it could be rationalized but it doesn’t work in any way and like watching it this time it was so awkward because like he has this really aggressive approach toward a lecture like she clearly wants nothing to do with him and he’s like grabbing her you know yeah and she takes offense to that totally understandable why she would fight him to get him off of her but then he [ __ ] tries to flip her like what kind of [ __ ] does that like she’s fighting you to get you away from her and you [ __ ] flip her what the hell’s wrong with you i guess you could have passed this like aggressive courtship behavior on matt murdock’s senses like maybe he sensed her pheromone levels rising and that she was like into him and stuff like that but that’s like the only way i’ll accept that and to top it all off the fight choreography was horrendous yeah it was so slow you could totally tell that ben affleck was not even in the same league as jennifer gardner when it came to doing a physical fight scene yeah yeah absolutely from there we get introduced to the kingpin who has this cool office where there’s a water feature pouring all throughout the walls and floor and stuff like that super convenient super convenient right and he has a meeting with nicholas nachos who’s trying to get out of the game and kingpin calls in the assassin bullseye who we meet in a bar in a pretty good scene that was played for laughs i did think the plane scene was pretty funny too we see daredevil on patrol where he beats the [ __ ] out of this guy scares this kid and tries to convince himself he’s not the bad guy even though you know he [ __ ] murdered a dude in cold blood at the subway station yeah this happens like almost an hour into the film and it’s like barely setting up his arc right there yeah it’s kind of late in the film to do that from there he gets an invitation to this ball and he meets up with elektra and they go on to the rooftops where he shows her his favorite view of the city there was a weird beat on this particular scene where she tries to leave and so he was like no no no stay it’s about to rain and then it rains and then he hears trouble so he’s about to go and then she’s like no stay so they’re like both trying to leave and pull each other to stay with them it was a weird dynamic within the scene well he told her that she was pretty so now she wanted to stay with him that’s what i felt like you know it felt a little shallow but he does end up staying with her you know and you got to love a hero who prioritizes his wiener over protecting innocence they have a tender love scene uh where they like feel each other’s scars and everything like that and he gets another invite to the grand hotel ball which he and foggy go to at the ball matt murdock gives wilson fisk [ __ ] calling him not innocent and it makes me wonder like does he suspect wilson fisk of being the kingpin right like why is he giving wilson [ __ ] does he know that he’s like a mob boss what does he know about him and if he suspects wilson fisk why isn’t he staking out his office where he’s clear to learn that wilson fisk is the kingpin it all ties into the issue that i have about the relationship between daredevil and the kingpin being unclear i did think it was pretty bold that fisk straight up told nicolas nachos that he was gonna [ __ ] kill him like right then and there yeah like if i were nicolas nachos i wouldn’t have left the damn party i would have like stayed in public you know yeah but i freaking called the police dude this guy’s the kingpin yeah i will rat i don’t care at least i’ll live exactly so nicholas nachos leaves the party along with elektra bullseye hunts them down crashes their car bullseye and daredevil fight and what i thought was pretty cool i do think it was cool that they had daredevil mrs billy club because of a nearby explosion that threw her senses off that was cool yeah electric against consciousness seeing daredevil’s billy club in her father’s chest she blames him and seeks out revenge which she makes clear at her father’s funeral scene after the funeral ben yorick goes to the morgue where we see kevin smith who’s playing a character named kirby in reference to jack kirby he reveals to ben urich that matt murdock is daredevil because his billy club turns into a blind walking cane i thought kevin smith did a great job in this role yeah from there kingpin compliments bullseye on his skill and asks him to kill elektra as well and bullseye asks for a costume that he never gets that he never gets we get an awesome evanescence music video after that where we see elektra training with their size and uh they even tie in shots of daredevil getting suited up during the male vocals of the song and it’s like so [ __ ] spot on because like they go to daredevil and the lyrics are like all this time i couldn’t see it left in the dark but you would never follow me you know it was oh my god it was unacceptable this song worked well with the visuals and everything but it was kind of cheesy people accused zack snyder of doing music videos [ __ ] look at this yeah that was totally a music video i loved that song from there we go to the rooftops where daredevil is looking for elektra and elektra is trying to kill daredevil she stabs daredevil and realizes it’s matt when she pulls off his mask then bullseye enters the scene and then we have that classic moment from the comic books where bullseye murders elektra by impaling her with her own sigh now i imagine audiences at this point were like what the [ __ ] yeah i heard some audible gasps when i watched it in the theater because you know the hero’s always supposed to save the girl in these stories and that didn’t happen here so it came across as extremely shocking and violent i think to most audiences and kudos to the filmmakers for sticking with that story from the comics yeah it’s pretty ballsy from there we’re reintroduced to the opening scene of the film in the church uh where daredevil and bullseye have a big fight on a huge ass organ like the largest oregon in the entire world yeah seriously that thing had to be like six seven stories yeah it did provide a neat backdrop for the battle teaching bullseye daredevil’s weakness to loud sounds so bullseye takes advantage of that by ringing the church bell and beating the [ __ ] out of daredevil but before he can finish him off he gives up the kingpin’s identity as wilson fisk and then what i think is probably the best display of daredevil’s powers in this movie daredevil hears a sniper from across the street about to shoot them and he moves bullseye’s hands in the bullets trajectory giving him a stigmata yeah which you know was more you know religious imagery then daredevil throws bullseye out the window now knowing that wilson fisk is the kingpin daredevil goes over to fisk’s office to fight him fisk was ready for him i’m not sure why he was ready for him unless he knew that bullseye had snitched him out but for some reason he knew daredevil was coming the fight that we got between daredevil and kingpin was really short it went off longer in the director’s cut i’m kind of pissed about that because it was actually a pretty good fight scene and here daredevil basically shoots his billy club it fails and he gets beat the [ __ ] up before he breaks the water system now i don’t know why they gave wilson fisk the whole water feature within his office when they easily could have gone with something like a cigar lighter to an overhead sprinkler system or something like that to get that same effect that’s true but daredevil uses the water to his advantage to beat the crap out of kingpin and then decides not to kill him because he’s not the bad guy and how he came to that revelation is not quite clear yeah the way he took out the kingpin’s knees oh i felt that every time i see that i feel it that crunch was hard to listen to and then knowing michael clark duncan’s weight and how he fell onto his knees that sounded horrible yeah michael clark duncan did a great job of selling the pain there yeah matt murdock gets closure about his dad and perhaps about elektra’s death because he finds uh this braille necklace that she left for him that she could have left before she died yeah that’s true and he talks about how elektra saved his soul again they never talked about vigilante ethics or anything like that so i’m not sure how she did that uh and then we see that ben urich decides not to disclose daredevil’s secret identity to the public and that’s the end of the movie there is a brief mid credit sequence where we learned that bullseye is still alive oh i totally forgot about that i ended the movie before that scene oh really yeah but you know if you didn’t watch that scene then you probably assumed that daredevil killed bullseye just prior to not killing the kingpin so you got to make sure to watch that mid credits scene for daredevil’s arc to actually make sense overall you know the movie has a lot of problems from the direction to the writing to the performances really the good things that it has going for it are its action and its fan service but that doesn’t carry the film far enough to warrant a good rating so i give it two and a half stars yeah that seems fair i mean even when it comes to the action i mean you have like the playground scene you have a lot of cg not all of it was great when it came to the fan service it was great for fans but you know the general public they don’t even recognize that half the time so yeah again i think two and a half stars makes sense it’s the same rating we gave green lantern and i sort of feel about this film the same way i do about that one yeah i will say though that the director’s cut is a better movie watch that film if you’re gonna watch this and i would give that version three stars you do recommend that one yeah yeah okay yeah i’m gonna have to check it out but that does it for this review let us know what you thought about the movie by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast gmail.com or by visiting us on facebook instagram or twitter you can find links to all of our accounts by visiting our website dynamicduel.com and on our site you can also find a link to our patreon page where we offer bonus content discord access and other perks our lowest tier is only two dollars a month visit patreon.com dynamic duel right after this episode also on our website is a link to our merch store where we sell t-shirts hoodies stickers and more with our dynamic duel no prize artwork this week i’m going to be drawing bullseye not the version from this movie but the comics version yeah good that’ll be cool we want to remind everyone again to please subscribe to our show if you haven’t or please leave a rating or review on your platform of choice and sharing the show on social media or in person is also a big help for us but that does it for this episode in our next episode we will be reviewing the dc animated film justice society world war ii yeah i’m really looking forward to it it’s been out it’s been getting some good reviews i can’t wait to see it we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers ken johnson jace krump john swarovski john spees zachary hepburn and john betchinina for helping make this podcast possible and we’ll talk to you guys next week up up and away true believers