Daredevil First Thoughts

Daredevil

I’m undeniably team Marvel. I think the way they have redefined mainstream cinema storytelling over the last few years is amazing. I think they’ve proved that blockbusters can be smart character driven and entertaining. Since Thor in 2011 (A low point for the studio) they haven’t put a foot out of line in terms of the films they’ve released (We are yet to see what the result of the Edgar Wright Ant Man debacle will be) but Daredevil is a real failure.

Everything that’s wrong with Daredevil comes down to the tone that has been decided for the series. What Marvel often get right is the way they keep the tone upbeat but they still leave room for interesting character stuff and a sense of tension. Daredevil seems like an exercise in melodramatic seriousness it’s as if the series has been written by a 14 year old boy who likes “Graphic Novels”. Every scene seems legally required to take place in a dark alley way at the middle of the night. This might be acceptable if the show had any sense of irony but it doesn’t. The show also doesn’t hold back on the violence often inflicted by our protagonist. I can understand moral ambiguity in order to create conflict but Daredevil just  seems like an pain. The show is awfully paced every scene seems really slow and in-between the scenes there are long even more boring flashbacks to Daredevils childhood.

One of the stranger elements of Daredevil is the cast. Charlie Cox play Matt Murdock (Dardevil) and he makes a good Murdock, when he’s Murdock he’s an enjoyable screen presence. Deborah Ann Woll plays Karen Page and she probably does the best out of the whole cast because she manages to make the most of a real dud of a part. Karen is young woman who is being helped by Murdock and his friend Foggy (Elden Henson) she is haunt by grief. It’s a damsel in distress role we have seen time and time again. Henson as Foggy is another strange element of the show he is by far the weakest of the main three performers but he is undeniably the most entertaining as the comic relief in a very dour show. When these three performers are in normal conversational scenes together the show is at it’s most watchable but when anything else is onscreen it’s generally terrible (with the exclusion of some very well directed fight sequences that would be better if someone had told the director and cinematographer what light looked like)

Daredevil is more bad than good. I  haven’t watched the whole series yet and if it gets better I’ll redact this but for the meantime I’d suggest for the inevitable second series that the show should try and find it’s more comic booky camp side.

(The whole of Daredevil series 1 is on Netflix now)