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With such an immense library of movies still waiting to make that leap from DVD to Blu-Ray, I really want to know who thought it was a good idea to make Daredevil get that very leap. This is a movie that is by no means great and most likely will wither away in a few years and meet the demise of being long forgotten like that those old Lou Ferrigno Hulk movies that one even had Daredevil in it and the Dolph Lundgren Punisher along with a few others that probably were so bad I have already forgotten them. When you look at the slew of Marvel movies that came out over the last few years I would have to strongly say Daredevil and Ghost Rider probably were the weakest films. I was a huge Ghost Rider fan and owned a good amount of the comics and was savagely let down by the movie. It was so bad I wanted to punch something after I watched it. Thankfully daredevil is not as bad as Ghost Rider but this film is just dragged down by so many issues it ruins the film that actually had some potential. My qualms were the fact it was just drenched in CGI, at least with Spider-Man and X-Men they pulled off the CGI moments fairly well, where as here they looked worse than the Cinematics of a freaking XBOX game, and now with Blu-Ray showing it in high definition those bad CGI moments get highlighting and stick out sorely. With Blu-Ray on this release it really is a give and take. Rather than enhancing the project as a whole it sheds a light on poor quality and makes you feel like you’re caught in a black pixel sandstorm from all the graininess due to the majority of the film being shot in dark places. For those unfamiliar with Daredevil, this movie follows the story of Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck) who became blind at a young age and worked hard to push his remaining senses to the maximum potential. Matt grows up to become an attorney from Hell's Kitchen, New York to represent the underdogs. Later on he would develop an alter ego named Daredevil to swiftly deliver justice and get revenge on the Kingpin. Along the path to the Kingpin, he snags a girlfriend Elektra (Jennifer Garner) which the way he gets her name upon their first encounter has to be one of the most unnecessary scenes I have ever seen. While I love violence in my movies like any person likes cream in their coffee this movie just had a lot of pointless fighting. It was as if they were excited they learned cool fighting moves and wanted to show them over and over during the movie. My biggest most gigantic gripes about the movie overall was the music, it was like some crappy nu-metal bands and their record labels paid obscene gobs of money to get their music played during a lot this movie. I tell you nothing gets me going in the morning like listening to The Calling or Fuel remember those bands? You probably don’t. Then the other gripe is casting, I think Ben Affleck did an alright job with Daredevil but Elektra could have by some one who could fast and deadly, I just don’t see that with Jennifer Garner. I am one of those snobs who if I see something in the comic, I would greatly appreciate seeing it that way or similar. Kingpin is an enormous big strong fat looking white guy. In the movie he is played by Michael Clark Duncan who is neither fat nor white. I do have to say Duncan did a great job with the character he was given to work with but it's just not what I am used to seeing in the comics so I have that bias. However this is nowhere near as bad as when some stupid white guy played Terry Fitzgerald in Spawn, when in the comic he looked more like Michael Jai White who played Al Simmons/Spawn. Lastly you know when your at a bar playing darts and you see one of your friends aiming for the bullseye and they miss so bad they hit the ceiling or something ridiculous like that? Well that is how their aim was on depicting Bullseye in the movie. They kept the psychopath aspect alive and well but ruin it by making him look nothing like most people would know him by, and having him played by Colin Ferrell who just adds a silly twist to the movie’s idea of Bullseye. I make a lot of comparisons to this and Ghost Rider because structure wise they play out pretty much the same, Intro to the Character and then reveling of the past and how they came to be, introduction to villains, big showdown and then usually the good guy walks out victorious and then end of movie. However to be fair not every one comes out of the movie happily ever after which I appreciate because Ghost Rider’s ending made me want to vomit. A few other good points to this Blu-Ray release if they give you the directors cut which does add in quite a bit of extra footage, we are talking twenty-one more minutes than the theatrical version. If you play close attention to this movie you will notice great cameos by Kane Hodder, Kevin Smith, Stan Lee, & Frank Miller. This is almost like a Nerd’s Where’s Waldo of cameos. Thankfully on this release they don’t skim on the special features. You get Audio commentary by the director and producer, an enhanced viewing mode that gives you some behind the scenes while you’re actually watching the film. Beyond Hell’s Kitchen: Making Daredevil Documentary which goes even deeper behind the scenes and how the scenes came to be. HBO’s special they did on daredevil and best of all Men Without Fear: Creating Daredevil Documentary goes through the history of daredevil in comics by talking to various comic greats who have handled the story of daredevil and kept it alive for over forty years. This includes testimonials from Stan Lee, Frank Miller, Joe Quesada, Brian Michael Bendis, and Kevin Smith to name a few. Hearing their stories and how they worked with the daredevil story was great. Even better was some of the Kevin Smith commentary about toying with dead characters, he uses a pretty great and obscene analogy. You even have three music videos, more documentaries, trailers, photo stills. If you are a fan of the Daredevil comics the supplements on this Blu-ray release are well worth owning. Evening seeing Frank Miller speak about comics in general is attention grabbing. While this movie doesn’t exactly hit the bullseye for entertainment, it overall does have it’s moments and if you didn’t enjoy this movie at all, they at least make it up to you by giving you enough special features to make you forget about liking this movie or not. -derek-
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