Who knew? Apparently not writer-director Mark Steven Johnson, whose weak dialogue and titter-inducing voiceovers mark his talent as considerably below the Bard's. That he's failed to deliver a "Hamlet" hardly surprises, since "Daredevil" is, after all, a Ben Affleck movie- and thus, inevitably, a slickly finished, somewhat empty product of the Hollywood machine. Be that as it may, it remains an entertaining and likable movie, with intriguing glimmers of something deeper beneath its shallow surface: an undeveloped potential that's nonetheless thought-provoking for those willing to sit back and enjoy the ride.
The mood is set by the atmospheric musical compositions of Graeme Revell, whose 1994 score for "The Crow" alternated heavy percussion and ethereal chants with the crunching, grinding death rock of the soundtrack. "Daredevil's" music is more mainstream, but strongly echoes the sounds of the earlier film, which likewise featured a morose, sinister-looking hero and montages of street-level grittiness interspersed with religious imagery. Against this brooding backdrop, we enter the familiar world of the comic-book hero: the childhood trauma, the special powers, the difficult double identity.
Daredevil starts life as Matt Murdock, a Hell's Kitchen kid blinded in a freak accident more or less in retribution for the sins of his father, an alcoholic boxer with ties to crime. However, the loss of his sight is compensated by the sharpening of his other senses, including hearing so acute it functions as a kind of sonar allowing him to "see" objects which the film renders in shadowy, phantasmagoric blue. After Murdock senior is killed for throwing a fixed fight, his son vows one day to kick butt in the name of justice.
Fast-forward 20 years and Matt has grown up into Ben Affleck. By day, he's a seedy-looking lawyer in aviator glasses who never combs his hair but nonetheless finds the time to take on every pro bono case in the Tri-State area, much to the chagrin of his more mercenary partner Franklin Nelson (Jon Favreau). By night, he turns his walking stick into a nifty pair of nunchucks and roams the streets fighting crime in a form-fitting scarlet outfit that looks like it came from the leather fetish section of Hot Topic.
The costume's slit-eyed mask, with its diminutive horns, makes Daredevil look a bit like a lobster-toned Batman, but he's a lot more disturbed than the guardian of Gotham City. He sleeps submerged in a coffin-like tub from which he arises in the morning, like a sightless "Creature from the Black Lagoon," to clutch his head and crank up the heavy metal on his stereo so as to block out the invasive noise from the streets outside. A fairly humorless man whose habits include brooding in the city's frequent downpours and chewing Vicodin by the handful, Matt's clearly not a happy guy. The closest he comes to cracking a smile is when the ravishing Elektra pops up on his sonar screen.
Jennifer Garner brings leonine beauty and a sultry pout to her role as the combat-trained daughter of a Greek millionaire, morphing into a more willowy version of Xena, Warrior Princess once she steps into her dominatrix-style battle gear. The chemistry between her and Affleck fluctuates from the high point of their first meeting, a charming playground duel involving seesaws, to the nadir of a listless lovemaking scene, complete with roaring fire, that is remarkably unimaginative considering the filmmakers had a man with enhanced senses on their hands. (At least give Daredevil credit for having his priorities straight- given the choice between running off to fight crime and sticking around for nookie, he chooses the latter without much hesitation, unlike the dully dutiful Superman.)
Their bliss is complicated, of course, since crime boss Kingpin-the ridiculously large Michael Clarke Duncan as an affable, cigar-puffing businessman-is after the life of Elektra's father. For this purpose, Kingpin dispatches dart-player extraordinaire Bullseye (Colin Farrell), a grunting Irish skinhead who enjoys giving paper-clip trachaeotomies and, to all evidence, shops a few racks over from Daredevil, in Hot Topic's goth/industrial section. Farrell infuses Bullseye with a rabid, over-the-top gusto that's a joy to watch as he offs Elektra's old man with Daredevil's weapon, leading her to believe that the hunky masked fiend is responsible. In accordance with her tragic namesake, Elektra then revs up for revenge, illustrating the perils of dating in disguise: it's all fun and games till someone gets stabbed through the aorta.
"Daredevil," whose hero questions himself enough to mutter "I'm the good guy" over and over again as if it were a mantra, toys with the idea of becoming a revenge tragedy before backing off into safer territory. This is a shame, particularly as its New York setting could have been used for a relevant meditation on the trauma of violence and revenge had the producers been more courageous.
Overall, the movie needs more edginess, starting with its hero. Affleck's bland, all-American attractiveness doesn't quite reflect Daredevil's supposedly tortured spirit, which Affleck tries to render by perpetually looking as though he's just endured root canal. Mask or not, it's hard to get past the fact that we're watching J. Lo's intended, and indeed the more oddball Farrell might have been better in the leading role. Garner, on the other hand, finds the right dark streak as Elektra, her lovely features chilled by the same aura of pathos she's perfected as another bereaved assassin on ABC's "Alias." The movie doesn't showcase her as much as it should, which had me wishing for an Elektra spin-off-free of Affleck's somewhat cloying presence. For the time being, though, "Daredevil" is fine fun: a rocking action flick in which you might, if you squint your eyes, even discern some depth.