Posted by Mani at 66.46.234.254 on February 14, 2003 at 13:41:25:
[minor plot points discussed, no big spoilers]
I'm a big DD fan, and I was really looking forward to this movie. But in the end I was pretty disappointed. Not only did it have me complaining like "the comic book guy", in general this is a pretty poorly executed movie even if you've never read any DD.
First of all, the script is piss-poor. Any scene that doesn't include either humor or action just falls flat on its face. The writing and unpolished direction really gives the "drama" scenes a bad soap-opera feel. The acting, (with the exception of Favreau's near-perfect rendition of Foggy Nelson, and an OK Bullseye), is flat. The action scenes, by today's standards, DEFINE average. The soundtrack is horrible. It is full of bad "nu-metal" and crooning radio rock. I find this selection totally inappropriate, and I wish the guy responsible for the soundtrack treated the subject material with a little bit more reverence. And the poor editing generally makes you feel like you're at some film-student amateur night.
Now that I've said what I think of DD as a movie, let me discuss what I think of DD as a comic-book adaptation.
I think that it is important for script writers to adapt the source material in a way that it works in the movie medium. I accept that things will be changed. But the DD movie just went too far, and simply rearranged and rewrote core aspects of the DD mythos for no good reason that I could think of.
Let me give an example. Early on in the movie, Matt Murdock is shown in a court case where he is trying to convict a rapist that he knows is guilty. Unfortunately he loses the case. In a later scene we show DD following this rapist as he is celebrating his court victory at a bar. DD proceeds to kick everyone's ass, and then murder the rapist!!!! I was simply floored, was I seeing a DD movie or was I hallucinating? Did I accidentally step into a Punisher movie? This whole subplot spits in the face of how people like F Miller, Bendis and K Smith have been portraying DD for years. Not only that, but the purpose of this scene was to introduce us to Matt/DD. Good job, guy.
Another major f-up of the DD mythos was the portrayal of Elektra. Many will agree that Elektra is one of the coolest, most badass female characters in Marvel land. In this movie she's just some rich chick in black leather who's good at karate. And as someone else in this forum said, the pushup bras are totally overdone and distracting (the actress playing Elektra is very naturally beatiful, it's like they tried their damndest to jack up her boobs just to make joe sixpack movie-goer happy).
I thought Bullseye was done pretty well, but man did he look stupid, with his alligator skin trenchcoat and idiotic bullseye scar on his forehead. When seeing previews, I thought bringing in Micheal Clark Duncan as Kingpin was a stroke of genius, but unfortunately Kingpin had no depth. The whole red rose thing was lame. Kingpin is supposed to be a genius, but in this movie he's just a badass thug who says a couple lines and puffs on his cigar.
I could go on but I think it's pretty obvious how I feel about this movie. It has a couple redeeming values (foggy nelson, some good humor, decent fight scenes), the bad definately outweighs the good. Unpolished, uninspired, and I feel disrespectful to the DD franchise.
Too bad, I had high hopes!
-Mani