Review from Reconstructed Bellybutton
Here's a review sent in by falco1919. Falco and the movie critic didn't exactly applaud the movie, but the review is a gas! Check it out at the link, and check out their funky kitty rating system.
"I wish you could see me tonight, because I'm beautiful."
"I'm not the bad guy!"
"So my hair is in these cute ringlets, and my dress is all sparkly, so I look like a disco ball, but a stunningly beautiful disco ball. I'm so sorry you're blind, and fully appreciate my beauty. That will make me look sad and confused."
"Bad guys don't have fun red leather ensembles that make them feel all tingly when they jump around, right? See, so I can't be the bad guy! Bad actor, hell yes, but bad guy? No way, Jose!"
Yeah, you're not the bad guy, a good guy is the one who watches as his love interest gets beaten and sliced, then makes her crawl her bleeding, broken body back to him. "Owwie my shoulder!" is the universal good guy cry. Freaking baby. "Sorry about your wounds, honey, but I've finally gotten this spot warm, so drag yourself over here. Yeah, that's it, just don't bleed on the suit, okay?"
Daredevil is the story of a superhero who's specialty is detecting hot women. "Boy, bats must get all the chicks!" Matt Murdock/Daredevil/Delusional Good Guy (Ben Affleck) tells his greedy-lawyer-for-laughs-buddy, Jon Favreau. As a wee lad, little Daredevil was burned by a biohazard, leaving him blind but spunky. Older Daredevil decides to keep his promise to his pa (David Keith) - that he'll never, ever try to help a woman he loves. Women need to take care of themselves, dammit! And he'll try to enforce justice at night dressed as a dominatrix fashion victim named Poppy.
Poppy doesn't have much focus until forty-five minutes into the movie when he meets sassy Elektra (Jennifer Garner) at a restaurant and fights her on a playground in front of kids, because he's not a bad guy! It's very cute and sweet, so now they're in love. When Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) gets annoyed with Elektra's daddy, he calls in Bullseye (Colin Farrell) because apparently none of the local henchmen are remotely competent. Bullseye's talent is throwing things, which I guess is more impressive than trying to kill people with your smelly feet. He has a pretty high success rate, mostly to due to the fact that his victims don't move. They just stand there like meditating cows. Bullseye pouts when he misses Poppy because Poppy dared to step out of the way. "Damn that Poppy and his fancy fighting techniques!" Bullseye screams.
This thing is such a disaster that Mr. Thornhill isn't speaking to me because I let her see it. There are a couple of interesting ideas, like how can Daredevil attack a henchman when that's what his pa did, but they're buried in horrible acting and idiotic scene after idiotic scene. Of course, one big, obvious problem is that Benny Affleck is atrocious as a blind, vigilante superhero. He did his best to look like someone killed his favorite stuffed animal for the duration of the movie, which didn't make any sense to me. I'm tormented! Look at how I'm not smiling! See? See how my blank, dense expression never changes and I'm completely incapable of acting? Feel my pain! Rub my suit and make a wish! Wee! I'm a superhero! He had absolutely no internal angst, just frowny faces and look-how-hard-I'm-trying-to-act delivery. They should have cast about anyone else in the role - Willard Scott, Ed Asner, Kate Hudson's love fern, Bea Arthur, Shmutz the bucking pig, a can of creamed corn, Meryl Streep, Mr. Thornhill's little toe...
The other problem is that no one even bothered to create an outline of an outline of a plot. Here are all these characters that we incorrectly assume are interesting, now watch them hang out! Poppy is a vigilante who's favorite activity is perching on top of things, wow, intense. Elektra wants revenge, so we get a scene of her attacking bags of sand...spooky. The flirt-fight scene was painfully lame, and there was no point to either Kingpin or Bullseye - look, bad guys who don't do anything, wow, great. Bullseye throws things, but who the hell cares - the people weren't smart enough to duck.
Jennifer Garner is just the sassy love interest who forgives easily and seems like a walking hair care ad. And the dialog is the equivalent of a rotten can of spam, although it was kind of funny sometimes. Most of the time, however, I held my head in my hands and tried to imagine I was in a nice, happy place.
Mr. Thornhill wrote on a piece of paper that she would recommend this one to no one, except me because I must pay for the pain she's suffered.