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Review: DAREDEVIL (2003)


You can’t talk about Daredevil without having someone reviewing the movie (even if you wanted to talk about the TV show only). So, let’s get started…

In a time before Affleck became the target of memes and asked if someone bleeds, we could all see him in 2003’s Daredevil, where he plays the blind lawyer Matt Murdock, who is out for revenge against the mighty Kingpin.

The movie adaptation is quite fascinating. You have the leads doing the best with what they have. Besides that, you have the two actors playing the lead villains hamming it up to eleven (I’m seriously wondering if Colin Farell and Michael Clarke Duncan either did not care or they were given different directions). There is also the fact that it has a theatrical that is quite the mess, but a director’s cut that feels like a different movie (and yes, I saw both for the sake of the review) with Ben Affleck as the main lead. History sure knows how to repeat itself.

The director’s cut isn’t a masterpiece of the genre, but it feels more like a movie than the theatrical. Where you can see the studio meddling with the editing all over the place for the theatrical, the director’s cut comes off more natural, a version that fills gaps that were missing (moments between Matt and his father, for example).

While the original comes off as a generic action film, the version director Mark Steven Johnson had in mind comes off as a more raw and brutal character piece with a bigger focus on Mr. Murdock. It begs the question if the filmmakers were promised that they could make it R-rated at first, but was forced later on to make it PG-13. If that’s not the case, then I can’t tell how these two versions are so disconnected from each other.

I can’t promise you that you would like the director’s cut if you have a distaste for the theatrical, but I still want to recommend it. It’s an interesting watch to see how different the movies are in comparison.

Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter at @WOBAMEnt.

Latest posts by Isak Wolff (see all)

Co-host of the Amateur Otaku Podcast. A writer of many things. Loves everything nerdy from anime/manga to comics and video games. Fire Emblem is the greatest of all time.

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