100 Essential Superhero Movies – You Decide! Daredevil
Part of finishing off this list of 100 essential superhero movies is bringing in my audience, and so when I got down to the last 15-20 movies, I decided that I would let you decide. And what better than to reach out to other movie critics and reviewers to let them argue the case for a superhero movie that they are a fan of and at the bottom of the post, there is a poll where you can vote whether or not you agree if it should be included in the 100 Essential Superhero Movies list. But I didn’t want them to have all the fun so today I will be defending the case for Daredevil, the much maligned outing where Ben Affleck plays a blind guy in red leather.
To start off with, I’m going to be arguing for the Director’s cut of Daredevil rather than the theatrical cut. The Director’s cut has a darker edge to it and cuts out some of the romance. Daredevil himself is one of the most well known of the street-level superheroes, the heroes that don’t have quite as flashy super powers and spend their time in the slums of New York battling regular criminals more often than supervillains. While I can see that the origin section of this movie is fairly weak with a mini-remake of Rocky and a mediocre child actor, once it moves into the middle of his world it works a lot better. While I imagine it’s been done better in other movies, I really enjoyed some of the small touches showing bits of his everyday life as a blind man, and the toll it takes being a costumed vigilante without comic book healing.
On top of everything there’s two great villains in this movie. Colin Farrell’s Bullseye is just a giant ball of energy exploding across the screen. He seems to completely relish every moment he appears as he plays the psychotic who never misses with absolute glee. And there’s also the massive Kingpin played by the late Michael Clark Duncan with his giant cigar and menacing smile. And while many people don’t enjoy her, I quite like Jennifer Garner’s Elektra for most of this movie. Once you get past the playground fight, which I also think is a guilty bit of campy fun, she has great chemistry with Affleck. Sure there’s things that could be done better, but I think there’s a lot of good that can be seen in Daredevil and for that it’s worthy of being included as one of the 100 Essential Superhero Movies. Agree? Disagree? Your vote will make a difference as long as you make your choice known in the poll right below. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
Posted on June 11, 2014, in Blogs, Polls and tagged Blog, film, movies, poll, superheroes. Bookmark the permalink. 13 Comments.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 
Absolutely! I always go to bat for this movie. I don’t think it’s the greatest of all-time, or anything crazy like that, but I actually think it’s pretty good. I personally couldn’t think of 100 more “essential” superhero movies.
Thanks, I also agree that it has a lot of faults, but it’s still a fun movie and not a total disaster by any means.
The director’s cut is much better. But its still not a great film
Yeah, it’s not a great film, but it’s pretty good, and even though superhero movies are getting much better, it’s still slim pickings when you’re looking at 100 of them.
I did enjoy the original cut, though I still need to get around to seeing the DC of this one.
It’s worth it. It’s not a massive difference, but it does make for a better tone overall.
DD is my favorite Marvel hero and I will always have this film’s back. I actually defend it pretty much and even with it’s flaws, the movie is solid action entertainment and the DC is much more palatable. I agree with you that the tone and style of the film comes across much more tight and enjoyable. Affleck may have not been the perfect choice but you can tell he has a reverence and respect for DD and the mythos, which the director handled appropriately. They gave DD the old college try. Looking forward to Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, by the way. Great post, Bubbawheat!
It’s not up to the mark but the director’s cut seems pretty good…..
Yeah that’s pretty much my thoughts on it too. Thanks for stopping by!
Absolutely include it. First it’s a decent movie, really. I’m not sure why it gets so much backlash to begin with, except that some fanboys just seem to object to Ben Affleck on general principle. And secondly, it’s a movie that has a lot of value as a discussion piece. We’re getting to where it’s entirely possible for someone who is a fan of the genre to still not have seen every superhero movie for a given year, even if they’re a regular moviegoer. But all the fans saw Daredevil, and everybody had an opinion on it — usually several opinions on different aspects. So yes, I would say to somebody that if you’re a comic book movie fan, you should see Daredevil — because you will be talking about it at some point.
I feel like it’s at the point where it has the label of being a bad movie, but there are a large number of people who do like the movie for what it is but can’t look past the “bad movie” label.
I think you’re right. And this might just be me misremembering, but I remember it feeling like the superhero movie resurgence was kind of riding a high then, and this was the first in a while that was simply “OK”. I think it may be a bit like Star Trek III (thinking of a conversation I was having with 70sRichard the other day). It’s not a bad film, it’s just that what surrounded it made people expect more from it than it delivered.
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