‘Daredevil’ fails to live up to the ‘Spiderman’ legacy

And the fallout has begun. Since “Spiderman” knocked everything out of the water last year, studios have been trying to develop every comic book property they can get their hands, on and “Daredevil” is the first to reach the screen.

The comic focuses on a mysterious, justice-bent vigilante who patrols the rooftops at night, using his hyper-sensitive senses (all but his eyesight, which was lost as a child) to track down thugs and other assorted bad guys. Now as a grown man, Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck) plays the part of a lawyer by day and by night “the judge and jury.” Soon enough Matt encounters and falls in love with the enigmatic, cleavage bearing, Elektra (Jennifer Garner). And Daredevil finds himself as the suspected killer of Elektra’s billionaire father thanks to the efforts of the Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) and the hired assassin, Bullseye (Colin Farrell).

Unfortunately, in “Daredevil,” once the story is laid down, the movie becomes a convoluted mess with each character failing to have any real attention given to them other than our hero. So, when the movie comes to its inevitable franchise-inducing conclusion, we don’t really care much about what’s going on.

The problem lies in the script, which leaves too much dangling loose to make much more than the action sequences exciting. For instance, we have no idea of why Kingpin has chosen to kill his billionaire partner instead of just buying him out. And then why does he feel compelled to kill Elektra?

Perhaps the biggest character mystery is the Daredevil himself in his final showdown with the Kingpin. I’ll try not to give anything away, but I’ll just say that our hero pulls an amazingly abrupt and bewildering character change that doesn’t really fit in with anything else he’s done in the movie.

What “Daredevil” ultimately does is take one of the most incredible stories in comics and makes it little more than an average action picture. Director Mark Steven Johnson, unfortunately, left me wanting many times over. The dialogue was inexcusably bland in several scenes and on top of that, several of the scenes didn’t seem to fit into the film at all. Throwaway lines given to Matt’s partner, Foggy Nelson, could have been easily taken care of without the addition of a four-line long scene that existed outside of the essential narrative.

One of two things is going to happen now in comic book movies. Either the studios are going to take a cue from the eye candy that is “Daredevil” or they’re going to actually try and put together an amazing story such as “Spiderman.” We’ll find out soon which road the studios have taken with “The Hulk,” “X-Men 2,” and the “Matrix” all coming out this year, not to mention “Hellboy,” “The Fantastic Four,” “Punisher,” “The Amazing Spiderman” and others slated for release in 2004. I’ll also go out on a limb and say we can expect “Daredevil 2” coming at us in 2005, whether we want it or not.

Rating: 2 Starts