.....yeah. I'm not very familiar with Ben Affleck's body of work, so I'm not really one to judge. I've seen him in Dogma, where he plays a fallen angel, and I think he gave a good performance. I saw Surviving Christmas and wanted to stab something but that's most Christmas movies for me. I've heard terrible things about Pearl Harbour but they're more aimed at Michael Bay than Affleck, and he's won oscars for Argo.
(Sidenote: Researching him now, I've just found out he directed a short film called "I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook, and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney" which I feel obligated to see based on the title alone).
Basically he seems like a talented guy, who's made some bad calls, like all of us. Now, I don't know him, he might be a raging douche-bag (though participation is the above video suggests some degree of soundness), but I try to judge actors on their work because I can't know them unless I know them in person.
Then I was informed of a film Affleck starred in in 2003. A superhero movie. A superhero movie from the cinematic-comic-adaptation Dark Ages, before the Dark Knight trilogy and the Avengers came to restore order to that realm. After Joel Schumacher's "Batman and Robin" gave the world's Batman fans PTSD but just after the success of Sam Raimi's "Spiderman" movie and the first "X-Men" movie, Marvel decided to send out some of their lesser known heroes: Daredevil and Elektra, to try and secure their popularity over DC on the silver screen (even though, technically, Spiderman's rights belong to Sony and X-Mens' to Fox, so I guess the wanted to cash in on the heroes they still had).
Starting with Daredevil. Which I watched. And will now review.
Firstly, as I seem to be doing with all my reviews, I'd like to say that I didn't hate this movie. I found it entertaining. It is not, however, a good movie. It's not terrible, but it's not good either. And, it paved the way for films like Halle Berry's Catwoman (It's DC, I know, but still), The Fantastic Four and Elektra. I hadn't heard great things but I kept a fairly open mind. Here goes.
The basic concept is this (I'll try and avoid spoilers, promise): Matt Murdoch's father is a boxer, Jack "The Devil" Murdoch (I hope that's not foreshadowing anything...) rigging games for underground bosses. One day Matt sees one of the shady deals being organised and, running away, has an accident involving radioactive waste (as you do). He is permanently blinded but his other senses are heightened, primarily his hearing which allows him to see via sound-waves bouncing off of things.
Hmm, I'm sure there's an animal that does that... agh, tip of my tongue, it'll come to me.
After his son's accident, Jack decides to clean up his act but after he wins a fight he said he'd throw, the gangsters murder him in the streets. He just misses the gangsters leaving but vows revenge and trains himself to be a crime fighting vigilante
Parent murdered, vowing revenge, vigilante justice... y'know, that sounds familiar too... I just can't put my finger on it...
By day, Matt Murdoch is a blind lawyer, bringing criminals to justice through conventional means. By night, he is Daredevil, taking the law into his own hands. He is the night, he's the hero this city needs but not what it deserves, he is wanted by the police but he's adamantly not the bad guy.
Damn, why is this all so familiar?!
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| I'm so close, I know it... |
The plot of the movie is pretty weak to be honest. The mobsters who killed Matt's dad as well as the rest of the criminals are controlled by one man, the Kingpin. However, the press is beginning to catch on to the conspiracy so the Kingpin decides to frame this one dude, who happens to be the father of the girl Daredevil just met, Elektra Nachiose (played by Jennifer Garner). When Daredevil gets in the Kingpin's way during the assassination of Mr. Nachiose, he sends Bullseye, a master marksman who can turn anything that can be thrown into a weapon (played by Collin Farrell) after him and Elektra. Aaaaand that's pretty much the plot. There isn't a huge amount of pushing force behind this movie, it's mostly a game of cat and mice with the heroes and the one villain who actually does stuff (as opposed to the Kingpin who is awesome but does nothing).
They play up a good few main themes (and by play up, I of course mean hammer in) like the idea of faith. Daredevil's pretty religious (geddit? It's ironic!). There's a lot of talk of fear as well, Daredevil is the man without fear. Wasn't there some other superhero movie that mentioned fear every few minutes? Pretty sure that one had an Irish actor too... I get the feeling they're trying to make some other comparison but it's so subtle, I can't quite make it out:
That imagery... so familiar...
Anyway, lets talk about the movie as a whole. I think the main factors that bring it down are the special effects, some of the handling of the concept and the plot. The characterisation is good, and the acting is much better than I expected. Actually there's one scene towards the start of the film that made me dread what was to come acting-wise but thankfully it's just this one actor (who is only in this one scene, and in voice form):
Clearly this girl wanted to make the most of her twelve second read (despite the fact that twelve seconds of her in the film is faaar too generous). But other than this one incredibly wooden, primary-school-play standard performance, the acting is pretty good. Some of the dialogue is a little stilted and overly dramatic but it's a superhero movie, I can make allowances for that.
The main failing here are the effects. The CGI is unnecessary and simply awful. I mean, seriously guys, if The Matrix could do it in 1999, you can do it in 2003. Now, they're not Catwoman bad but they're close. And half the time I was sitting thinking "Could you not have a stuntman in the costume for that shot? Or there? Or- OH SERIOUSLY GUYS!"
Then there's the fight choreography. Oh boy. I'm gonna make another Matrix comparison, bear with me. The Matrix had some good fight choreography: It was fast paced, it kept you guessing as to what would happen next, it got the adrenaline pumping and it moved the scene along. Now imagine if you took similar fight choreography but slowed it down by about two seconds. Completely different effect. Suddenly you can see what's coming (because you know the actors do) you are bored because your adrenaline is sitting rather complacently in your blood stream, in no hurry to pump into action any time soon. And half of the tension is gone because it feels fake. It's like a dance, each actor trusts the other to move in time so that they can react. But in a real fight, you don't trust your opponent. Quite the opposite, usually. So it shouldn't look like you know they're about to go for a left hook. In conjunction with this failure is the truly appalling wire-work. I'm talking, more obvious wire-work than Thunderbirds bad. Not the movie, the TV show. Yeah, that bad. Turn your attention to exhibit A:
Y'see? It's too slow and it looks like they're constantly getting into position for the next shot. There're also the plot implications of this scene. Surely a blind man doing all these advanced flips and dodging blows like he could see them would attract some attention. This is a common thread throughout the film, Matt is highly inconsistent with how much of a secret he wants to keep his powers. Then there's the fact that Daredevil is somewhat of an enigma to the public, nothing but an urban legend to most, yet at the start of the film he leaves a calling card! WHY? There's also a lot of inconsistency as to exactly how much Matt can see with his radar sense. Sometimes he can see fine and other times he needs to make noise to do so. (Sidenote: I can't be the only one to think that Ben Affleck with that hair looks like Jason Bateman... Bateman... hmmm)
Finally, I have some problems with the treatment of Jennifer Garner's character. Don't get me wrong, she's a decent character, there's a little of the "strong independent woman" thing to her and being snarky and hurt for no apparent reason, but otherwise she's not a badly developed character and as the audience, I cared about her. However, there's a running thing that Matt wants to see her face (because the sound waves coming from his own mouth don't bounce off her face, apparently) and when it rains he can. Now watching the film this was something that really irked me because, why should he care what she looks like. Yes, I know they wouldn't choose an ugly actor to play Elektra, that's Hollywood but here you have a man who's been blind since he was twelve years old. Even if he did have any idea of physical attraction at the time, it's been, what? At least ten years since then. Living in near total darkness, only seeing faces when it rains, would he really remember what a traditionally attractive face looked like? And, my main problem, would he really care? This bugged me because it's a theme, a running idea that Matt still gives a shit about hot women when he hasn't seen one in years and can't see them on a day to day basis. Hollywood, I know you're not great at cutting back on the objectification of women in media, male gaze yadda yadda. But seriously? Here it makes the least sense to objectify your female lead, and stress beauty as a reason Matt is interested in her romantically. I can believe the banter, there's chemistry, there really is, but man, why make a big deal of it? There's one scene where they go to this big gala dinner thing and Elektra's all dressed up and GOES OUT OF HER WAY to tell him that she dressed up for him. Dude! He can't see you! You could be wearing tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie and he'd still think you were amazing, inner beauty and all that. And I understand that it is convention to dress up for fancy dinners. But telling him you dressed up for him? WHY?
Sorry for ranting, just... ugh, stupid, stupid writing.
And there you have it folks, Ben Affleck's first attempt at a superhero film. Overall, it's not unbearable. There are some bad decisions made but most aren't deal-breakers as far as enjoying the film goes. I guess we'll have to wait until 2015 to see how Affleck fares as Gotham's protector...
BATS! Thaaaaaaat's the animal I was trying to remember!
Okay, all sarcasm aside, this superhero concept is pretty much what one thinks of if asked to come up with a bat themed hero. This is the true "Bat-man", only the name was taken. So, will Batfleck be any good? Well, he has the brooding down, the double life, even the voice (and it's nowhere near as ridiculous as Bale's). But my hopes have been significantly raised for his portrayal of the caped crusader. Why? Because he's pretty much already played him.
Embrace the Madness
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