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Is Daredevil the Worst Comic Book Movie ever?
Tagged with: 2003 channel awesome daredevil doug walker nostalgia critic nostalgia critic real thoughts rob walker
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I agree with Rob that the director’s cut is a tad better, but the movie is still silly.
I wouldn’t say that the movie is bland since Colin Farrell and MCD are great, but it is a bit forgettable in comparison to the better movies that came out in later years.
Kiss from a Rose was actually used in the tail end of Batman Forever’s end credits, so it fits!
He DIDN’T kill Bullseye though!
Yay! I just asked for this on Tuesday! đ I actually miss the 2000’s music sometimes⊠Also, I really need to see this movie again. I have it on VHS somewhere. I think I was like 9 years old when this came out. I wasn’t paying attention until Electra came on screen and that was just because I thought she was fab. Hey, I was 9!
Superman might have Kryptonite, but plenty of other superheroes don’t- Spiderman for instance.
The reason for Daredevil being blind isn’t because being blind is meant to be some sort of disadvantage; it’s about how heroes can be anybody and how people can be underestimated, like how everyone thought Peter Parker was just a nerdy weakling. Matt Murdock is blind because you don’t expect a blind man to be a superhero, plus it’s an interesting set of powers.
Spiderman has the Parker’s Luck. If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Spiderman is pretty much the Marvel Comic universe’s punching bag – both Spiderman as a superhero and Peter Parker as a regular guy. He just can’t get a break.
I don’t feel like I need to watch this, as I already know what Rob thinks is the worst superhero movie ever, and what’s more, what he thinks of me for liking it, and what’s more again, what his response to this comment is going to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuNhTLVgV2Y
They literally say right in the video that this isn’t even one of the worst superhero movies ever. Besides, they don’t really judge people based on what movies they like or don’t like. What gave you that impression?
Check out some of his Facebook posts on Man of Steel.
I have a request for Real Thoughts. I’d love to hear what you guys really think about “The Monster Squad”.
“diet batman” is the proper title to this movie
Also…WHAT THE HELL IS THAT CAN ON THE COFFEE TABLE
…AND WHY ARE MY EYES ATTRACTED TO IT?
It’s a can of pressurized air–for cleaning in between the keys in keyboards and such.
I kept looking at it too XD
The worst comic book movie ever was the spinoff, Elektra. Fact.
Speaking of Ben Afleck…how about your opinions on Paycheck?
For the next Real Thoughts episode I would like you to talk again about Gargoyles, you made a review of it in 2009 so it would be interesting to hear if you have anything more to say about that show.
That cartoon deserve some recognition. And possibly a decent movie.
I have a request for “real thoughts” segement:
â Space Jam (1996); I know alot of people like this movie, but I don’t. To me this is a giant tennis shoe commercial, and was Warner Bros. first attempt to “modernise” the timeless Looney Tunes characters. It angers me especially because it lead to really awful adaptations such as “Baby Looney Tunes” and “Loonitics Unleashed.” This film killed the Looney Tunes in my eyes, and they have never fully recovered (Looney Tunes: Back in Action is a better representation of the characters, but the live-action portion is strained at best thanks to executive meddling.) I want to see if Doug and Rob feel the same way.
â Patch Adams (1998); Doug claimed this was one of the worst movies heâs ever seen, I want to see if his opinion has changed after the tragic passing of Robin Williams (RIP).
â Eight Crazy Nights (2002); Doug claimed at a convention that aside from âGarbage Pail Kidsâ this was the worst movie he had to sit though; that sounds like and interesting one to talk about
I think his opinion on the movie is the same. But he said something about Williams: whether the movie is good or bad, Williams is always good.
there are blind people in real life that use echo-location and they hooked them up to a brainwave machine and the part of the brain that reacts to seeing this was lit up
I’m not defending the movie,it’s just kinda cool since CA is on the subject
…Hopefully the Netflix series will be better.
Also I want your real thoughts on The Wiz, Space Jam, and Full House.
They also got Daredevil’s character wrong in the movie. In the comics Daredevil doesn’t kill at all and it even led to numerous confrontations with the Punisher, because Daredevil objected to Punisher killing people even criminals. He’s not the sort to throw somebody across train tracks so the train can hit them.
Yeah. That bothered me a lot too.
None of the character felt “just right”. There was always something a bit off.
I said Kingpin and Foggy where the two done best.
Bullseye was taken to the extreme and entertaining, but very different from his comic book incarnation.
Ben Urich was done halfway decent.
DD was okay in parts but a lot was done wrong, like the no killing part, his supposed “I’m not the bad guy”-arc (didn’t work) etc.
And the worst offender by a mile: Elektra.
God. Except for the name, sais, loving DD and killed by Bullseye they got everything wrong.
“In the comics Daredevil doesnât kill at all”
Ummmmmm, he doesn’t? Then what’s going on in “The Man Without Fear”, one of the most revered (as far as I know) Daredevil stories ever told?
He tosses a hooker outta window from a tall building (something that haunts him throughout the story).
Does the same to a guard, again a very high fall.
Drowns and blows up two henchmen who did nothing.
Makes a bullet ricochet back to the shooter, right between the eyes (although I guess you could call it self-defense).
And that’s only the most certain deaths in my assessment. Who knows what happened during all those fist fights and clubbings.
Does none of that count?
Is that the same story in which Elektra is killed? Because I’ve actually read that story and I don’t recall those things happening.
I do however recall many confrontations with Punisher over the killing issue, where Daredevil specifically tries to take him down because killing, even killing criminals is wrong.
I guess it could be said that movie Daredevil learns that killing isn’t the right way for him to solve problems only after he has done so.
Can you guys talk about Jurassic Park, it’s legacy, and what you think of the sequel coming out?
Agree. The blindness thing in this movie is a huge problem.
Daredevil might as well not be blind at all in this movie.
To say nothing of the fact that noise is his greatest weakness….except when it doesn’t bother him at all.
So you want a movie based on the comic-book but without Matt Murdock being blind? How would that be accurate to the comics?
It doesn’t have to do with being accurate in the comics. The complaint is that in the comics, Matt Murdock’s blindness, weaknesses, and powers are properly explained and utilized, showing that though his other senses are heightened, he’s still blind and there are times where that becomes an issue. In the movie, he becomes blind and BAM, he’ got superhuman strength and agility, and not once does his blindness ever affect his fighting style (except for a few encounters with Bullseye, but that’s about only two scenes in the movie).
Thats only due to the movie being much shorter than the comics. The amount of story in the comics has to be condensed for the movie. Especially since there isn’t a sequel.
I think superhero movies work best if you are already a fan of the comics so you can transfer the knowledge you have of the comics to the characters on screen, even if you’re doing so subconsciously. We know Matt and Elektra are supposed to have a romance. We know Elektra is supposed to fight Daredevil. We know Elektra is supposed to die. So when they get shown in the movie, we’re expecting it to happen.
I guess a person watching the movie without any knowledge of the comics will be confused as to why things happen the way they happen though.
And that’s one of the many reasons the movie fails. They didn’t give us any of that information onscreen. Instead of actually telling us about the character in some meaningful fashion, they just do a cliff notes version of a Daredevil storyline and wonder why nobody is raving about it.
I know you two are brothers, but damn, you sound alike.
Okay, some nit-picks.
1. Elektra Natchios name works in the comics because it’s a greek name and the character is suppose to be greek. But in the film she’s played by the very wasp Jennifer Garner so it doesn’t work.
In fact, I think Elektra was the character they screwed up the most. Not only the character, but the relationship between her and Daredevil. As a swedish filmcritic and comicbookfan, Orvar SĂ€fström, put it: “In the comics the relationship between Daredevil and Elektra spans over several years is in the movie boilt down to “Hi, I love you. Wanna fight?”.”
I hate how they went from a very complex film-noir meets greek tragedy romance (Elektra was meant to be THE femme-fatale to end all femme fatales) to a bubbly girl who happens to know how to fight and thinks DD killed her father.
Four things about the character was done right: the name, fighting with Sais, having a romance with DD and getting killed by Bullseye.
Everything else they did wrong.
2. Dougs gripe with DD’s blindness is a bit confusing for me because of one reason: Toph. He likes Toph who, in essence, has the same thing as DD. She’s blind yes but her powers allows her to “see” better than people who can actually see. I would have liked it if we got more of an explanation why he thought Toph worked and he really liked that character while DD didn’t. (And yes, I know Toph is done way better in Avatar than DD in this movie, just wanted Dougs opinion on the matter).
In essence, I’m a fan of DD the comics (especially Frank Millers early stuff. Born Again is one of the greatest comic book stories ever in my opinion) and I look forward to the Netflix series but this movie… not so much.
Like Rob said: It’s paint by numbers. Not only “this worked in other movies” but also “this happened in the comics, so throw it in” without making it organic to the story.
That’s one of the reasons I like the idea about the Netflix series. I think this story needs the time of a multiepsiode series to be done right than crammed into an entire movie. A storyline like Man Without Fear or Born Again could be done as movies. The Elektra story-line? Needs more time.
I’m gonna vote for Follow That Bird as a future episode of this, since we didn’t really even get the nostalgia critic’s thoughts on that, other than it being too nostalgic to beat down.
Do âArtificial Intelligence: AIâ next. That should be an interesting conversation.
There isn’t much from the Monte Christo movie that I remember other than it being weird, boring and bad.
And for some god damn reason the dad hanged himself. In the book he starved to death and it was a single line in the book, but in the movie he hung himself and it was a single line in the movie. Its like they went out of their way to piss off fans.
So the dad died in a different way. So what?
Dat stereo “umm…” though.
Daredevil is pretty well crap, but I still don’t agree with Doug’s obsession with “saying something new.” I’ve been hearing the same singular complaint for how many years now? “The movie thinks it’s saying something new when it’s not.” It’s like Avatar did something to the guy and now that’s all he cares about. In truth, the secret to originality is hiding your sources, when nothing is truly original. Stop looking for movies which reinvent the wheel and just focus on the quality of execution.
Sadly… Daredevil suffers the most in execution. The movie has no point, therefore it has nothing to build to. It uses slogans like “stay with me” and “I’m not the bad guy” in place of an actual narrative. This is borne of the desire to boil down complex emotional themes into simple slogans, but fumbles because the movie has no emotional themes behind it. Rob had it right – it’s a paint-by-numbers movie.
Daredevil fails not because it’s not saying anything new, but rather because it has no identity of its own. This is what happens when you try and copy successful movies with no knowledge or understanding of what made them famous to begin with. A copy is always going to be inferior to the original unless it has vastly superior production values, and even then it’s dubious. A good movie is one which can stand on its own independent of the hype surrounding whatever it’s copying, and Daredevil really has nothing you can’t find in Spider-Man, the X-Men movie or Blade. At that point, why bother?
“Daredevil fails not because itâs not saying anything new, but rather because it has no identity of its own.” That’s kinda what Doug’s been saying all these years. For example, he loves “How to Train Your Dragon,” even though he admits that it’s a very cliche story. The reason he liked it, was because of the exact reason you said: it’s execution gave it it’s own identity.
You kinda just reinforced Doug’s argument (though you may have worded it better).
It’s kind of like the ‘Temple of Doom vs Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ argument. The latter is arguably less stupid but it’s also got absolutely nothing creative or original about it. Temple of Doom is ridiculous, overly dark, annoying at times and overall hokey, but these qualities also strangely make it really enjoyable and memorable. I remember nothing about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, not even the nuking the fridge scene, because there was no passion or energy behind it. Daredevil is a superior film to, say, The Phantom, but you can tell the cast of The Phantom was having more fun while making it and it didn’t take itself as seriously. The only guys who are like that in Daredevil are Farrell and Clarke Duncan, everyone else seems to be playing it far too straight and brooding. Hell, I enjoyed Batman and Robin AND Steel more than Daredevil, because at least those were so epically messed up that they were fun to laugh at. I’ll take Shaq’s horrible but valiant attempt at acting over Affleck’s LAZY acting when we know he can do a lot better. Daredevil is just completely forgettable, formula crap. On the other hand, nothing about it is objectively terrible, so again it comes down to what you prefer – bland competence or hysterical failure. I personally prefer the latter.
Im surprised you didnt contrast daredevil with toph,because she is a great example of a blind superhero.
I had a similar reaction. Unlike the Daredevil movie, Avatar constantly acknowledges the fact that Toph is blind, yet she is perfectly capable and competent her own, and the fact that they forget she’s blind because of it can lead to interesting character interactions. Daredevil in this film on the other hand is capable of detecting and reacting to everything so perfectly, it becomes kinda annoying when you see him grinding from building to building on a freaking trapeze line, and then realizing “how the hell do his other sense pick that up?”
Also, Avatar shows that there are still disadvantages to Toph not being able to see. Like any opponent who isn’t detectable by her special senses being a major threat to her.
I’d like to see Alien 4. I liked the weird atmosphere of that movie, although it did get silly a number of times.
They should review superman returns they pretty much throw his weakness out the window in that movie.
But they didn’t really. The Kryptonite did effect him, he landed on the Kryptonite island and got the utter crap beaten out of him by the villains. He was able to throw the island into space it’s true but only after powering up on solar energy and the effort almost killed him.
loved doug’s target portrayal in the video. I liked this real thoughts episode too. I really do think that Jennifer Garner is a good actor these days just not as electra. I do fear that you will have to review electra but would love to see the nostalgia critic have an orgasm over the film. but let’s hope the real doug doesn’t explode over it.
I know Doug didn’t watch the New Spiderman Animated series from the 90s, but Michael Clarke Duncan actually did voice Kingpin on the show, and he accepted the role in Daredevil because it was for his fans.
Why do you always say take care to the audience Doug?
Because he’s American.
In America, different security advertizing was so powerful that it made safety to be the #1 concern of all citizens and thus “take care”, “stay safe”, “have a safe journey”… etc, so everything including “safety” and “care” became #1 things to say to people at parting. (It used to be “have a nice day”, “stay well”, “godspeed” respectively).
It’s funny, in some parts of my own country “take care” would be issued as a threat XD
Anyway me and my sister loved your review, very hilarious and and insightful and intriguing but you seemed to have a very reddened swollen and boiled face than usual Doug though you should know.
Please do Alice in Wonderland real thoughts?
I’m really curious; all this tim Burton talk reminded me. I have to confess I really like the movie and the review NC did seemed like… it missed a lot of the points of the movie. It almost seems like they were made for the humour of them, rather than as legit gripes.
Like “you’re so big why don’t you just squish them” – well, didn’t you notice killing people in this world isn’t all that acceptable for protagonists, also Alice is a little GIRL (insert Balki); she won’t go around killing people… etc., then “wonderland – underland”, well isn’t it obvious “wonderland” is something the kid made up while “underland” is the “real” (and more believable) name of the world…
Also it confused me that you didn’t address a few very obvious mistakes in writing (like chaining the red queen to the knave and him begging to be killed instead – well, he just tried to kill HER, wouldn’t he just wait to be out of sight and snap her neck or something) – that’s obviously there to make a point but through faulty execution…
Also, maybe it’s because I’m a bitch, but this is the ONLY movie I EVER saw that sends to all the little bitches out there what I’d consider the RIGHT message. I mean all OTHER “disney princess” movies hook the bitch up with what the movie considers to be the “RIGHT dick” as opposed to all the wrong dicks. THIS movie however says “nah, nah see you should go on, pursue your own thread you know, BE somebody, and then dicks will… well, eventually happen, and the right dick will eventually come along. It is rarely seen that a movie gives women a message that the point of life is not a dick.
I dunno, just my take on it – I’d love to hear your real thoughts!
More weird stuff the review says, just to… express my confusion with it:
“The movie shows what Alice isn’t. But what IS she!?” – that, is what the movie (and Alice) are trying to FIND OUT. The whole movie is about her finding out who she is and what she wants. This is WHY the movie cannot show you who she IS at the very beginning. She doesn’t know. She’s a little girl (insert Balki) – she doesn’t know who she is yet!
“Why have her shrink to fight the Jabberwocky?!” …err, to fit in the champion’s armor which is clearly too small for her, and the queen SAYS so? Yes, it’s arguable whether being like 3 stories tall is better than wearing an armor but you can’t argue that the movie didn’t EXPLAIN it.
“Thay have a stupid scene where they all ask who will be the Champion even if they all know it’s Alice” – they don’t know. By going to recsue the Hatter, even if it’s not written so in the com–pen—dium? – the movie (and Alice) clearly establish that people have a choice over “what’s written” and also the White Queen says something like “you can’t let others run your life – you must make your own choice”. So it’s clear Alice HAS a choice and that whatever’s written won’t necessarily HAPPEN.
The whole movie is about Alice taking CONTROL (“this is my dream I decide what happens from now on”, “I make the path” etc).
“Alice – this whole time! was Alice!!! (…) Are you suggesting Alice of Alice of Wonderland was all this time Alice of Alice of Wonderland!? Whoah – this is like telling me Clark Kent was Clark Kent the whole time!” …no. This is like telling you Clark Kent was Superman the whole time. The movie is about Alice becoming the Alice of Alice of Wonderland. At the beginning everyone clearly states she’s NOT the Alice of Alice of Wonderland. Yes she’s the same child that was once there, but it’s a different personality, it’s Clark Kent – not Superman.
And there’s other stuff like that. Of course there’s a lot of crap you pointed out correctly (all that carnage that was written to happen but nobody took notice?!, the actress doing Alice being so… goddamn bland!?).
I actually get what Alice in Wonderland was trying to accomplish with that ‘twist’. I really do. And I even think it would have worked if the writing was smart. But the biggest problem was that we already knew Alice was the real Alice from the beginning. Even when Alice, and the other characters, deny she isn’t the real Alice, I know that she is because the title gives it away. And also, I could see the twist coming from the beginning because of that little moment when Alice was young and told her father of the ”nightmares” she’s having. Not to mention that it was obvious that the twist was supposed to surprise us. But it couldn’t because the writing wasn’t smart enough to hide it.