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Underground > Comic Books >

Daredevil film, one for the fanboys/girls

  
 
doctorbeck
10:16 / 06.03.03
i'm new here, so sorry if i'm mailing this to the wrong forum but couldn't decide between films and comics.

went to see the daredevil film last night, my inner fanboy was pleased that a lot of the old DD mythos made it through intact and that they were slipping in the names of old members of the DD creative team into it everywhere (dad fights a john romita, mortician is called kirby, dad previously fought miller, cameo from stan the man etc). on the whole though a bit of a clumsy overwrought movie with a lot of stilted dialogue and a gothic city / troubled and violent vigilante bit that was a little bit too batman for my tastes. saying that they did deal a little with the ethics of dressing up and killing villians in a way i suppose you have to post-rorschach.

electra handled okay but the fight scenes failed to come alive, but did really enjoy how they showed his sonar / radar powers working.

bullseye had terrible dialogue and acting and although the kingpin had a suitable air of menace he was too skinny and a black man, now maybe i listened to burn hollywood burn too much as a kid but...just a bit predictable really.

best bit was probably the trainler for x-men 2 on before it, but a pleasant enough couple of hours of escapism.


andrew
 
 
sleazenation
10:57 / 06.03.03
Ordinarily this sort of topic would be more at home in the film forum (where there is already a daredevil thread or two) - but perhaps if we frame the topic a bit differently to cover the curent crop of comic-based films in general and Daredevil in particular. What do the Daredevil fans think? What do comic fans think - any non-Daredevil or non-mainstream comics readers (or even *gasp* non-comics fans) out there? are comic fans even relevant? Is this just just another fun action film that happens to be based on a comic?

What do people think?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:22 / 06.03.03
well I quite liked it, it was a bad film in the scheme of things, but it did appeal to the inner 14 year old in me. I liked the way there were so many references to the comics in it, the catholicism, the fact that daredevil gets heavily chinned before he manages to do anything, etc.. I was expecting it to be a terrible film, and on a lot of levels it was, but I did strangely enjoy it and come away from it quite excited to re-read the Frank Miller stuff. The guy playing Bullseye was very poor though, they might as well have got Jim Bowen in to do it, he probably could have handled the character a lot better. "..In One!"
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
12:52 / 06.03.03
Being a fan of the comic and a fan of good writing and fluid visuals, I would have rather spent my money on a cheap whore in red leather rather than Ben Affleck.

But to try and go along with redirecting the thread to better suit the questions why comics into movies and do fans matter, Daredevil is a weird example.

Do comics fans matter?

Um... I cannot imagine a studio exec looking down the barrel of his cigar saying 'Make sure it appeals to the fans of the comic! It has a lot of heart, so mention Frank Miller, Jack Kirby (who had nothing to do -for once- with Daredevil) and John Romita. And fill the movie with a church, an almost exact replica of Frank Miller's version of Daredevil's home and a sleep deprivation tank.' But... they did. I don't know why, but none of those things advance the plot and they do take up a lot of time. So... why? It only pleases the fans. In other films, there are a few nods (the mention of yellow spandex in X-Men), but nothing so direct as Daredevil.

Why comics?
Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the Hulk are all known by almost everyone on the planet. X-Men is the single biggest comic selling since the mid-80's (I think). Daredevil... is a puzzler. It does share with Blade the option to do a large kick-ass hand-to-hand fighting film/gymnastics exstravaganza, though, and say in a cutesy way, 'look, comics.' It's this whole wowing at comic books that really perplexes me. I think that Holywood is looking for new franchises and comics are a good place to go. Look at it this way, Spider-Man has an endless series of films in which he fights bad guys. That's what he does. The comic is still going after its inception in the 60's. And you can put his face on soda cans, chips, candy, video-games, clothing, cellular phones, anything. It's called marketing. And I think this is the big big reason that so many comic films are being made. In 1989 you couldn't take a piss without seeing a bat signal. Everyone in the entertainment business wants a piece of that money and of they can get a set of horns all over, or people to buy DD ties in interviews, so be it. They will take that risk.

But that's just my opinion. For the fan, the bright side is that they get a chance at seeing their favorite comic books on the screen and not seem like a weirdo for the first time when people that never read comics are asking them, 'So who's Bullseye?' So that can be good (Ofcourse they'll be confused when you tell them he is not a horribly annoying Irishmen continually pointing to his goofy scare and puffing out his eyebrows in a sneer) and I'm glad some people who went to see the film liked it and are reading the Miller stuff rather than the puke that Bendis doles out... but that's another tale.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:51 / 06.03.03
I don't see any point in having this thread here when it's about a film - move it to the Film forum, and then point out that there's already a thread about the Daredevil movie. If anyone wants to start a thread about the current Daredevil comic, I'd be happy to participate.
 
  
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