I don’t think anyone’s going to stand up and attempt to say that the 2003 version of Daredevil was a particularly good film. Mark Steven Johnson may have set out to be faithful to the classic Frank Miller run on the comic (especially utilising the character of Elektra), but the whole thing was a bit of a hodge-podge and a non-event, meaning I wasn’t surprised when rumours began circling that 20th Century Fox were thinking of rebooting the franchise in an attempt to get it right second time around (in a similar manner to the similar reboot planned for The Fantastic Four – mainly so that they don’t lose those all-important movie rights).
Well, those plans for a reboot just got one step closer, as they’ve signed a director, and it’s a pretty good choice. David Slade may not be quite as high profile a scoop as getting Darren Aronofsky for the second Wolverine film, but he’s a filmmaker who’s managed to impress with both Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night, and while I haven’t seen Eclipse, I have heard that he’s actually gotten the Twilight Saga the closest to actually delivering a genuine movie (rather than just two hours of emo moping and sparkly vampire pouts). In short, he’s a filmmaker who’s capable of providing an edge, which a street-level hero like Daredevil desperately needs. This is only the first step along the road – but it is a fairly promising one…
I’m a big Daredevil fan and I was able to look past the 2003 movies many failings on first viewing. On rewatching… not so much.
It still has some nice things going for it, particularly the less disjointed extended edition, but it just doesn’t gel as a coherent, compelling film.
Oh, and Colin Farrell is bloody awful.
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Yes, I have heard that the extended edition is marginally better – but the original version made so little impression, I haven’t gotten around to it (and doubt I will). And yes, Farrell is awful. Hopefully the new version will have a bit more grit and a little less flash…
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I’ve only ever seen the extended DVD version of Daredevil, so I thought it was OK. But I can see that it’s a bit crap when the extras are taken out.
Also I saw it after I saw Elektra, so frankly it looked pretty good by comparison.
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