Daredevil (2003)

"He paid in fluke. Fluke is a fish, Matt.", 1 December 2017

Blinded as a child when a vat of radioactive goo hits his face, Matt Murdock discovers his other senses have been uber-heightened. As he grows, he trains as a fighter and learns to use his newly found powers to fight for good. That "good" includes bringing down Kingpin – the city's biggest crime lord and the man ultimately responsible for the death of his love, Elektra.

This was a first time viewing for me. It may not be fair, but watching the 2003 Daredevil film in 2017, it's impossible not to compare it with the Netflix series. Let's see – they both, obviously, feature the blind titular hero. They both feature a ruthless criminal named Kingpin. They both feature a love interest / fighter named Electra. And they both feature a lot of fight scenes. But beyond these superficial similarities, the movie and the series couldn't be more different. Ben Affleck looks horribly stiff – especially in his fight scenes. His movements are unnatural. Michael Clark Duncan might have been a wonderful actor, but like Affleck, he's also stiff - too stiff to be an effective Kingpin. I don't think the weight he gained for the role did him any favors. As bad as Affleck looks in the fight scenes, Jennifer Garner as Elektra is even worse. She looks like someone in an aerobic kickboxing class, not someone who could actually hurt you in a fight. Finally, while both films feature a ton of fighting, the stuff in the movie is child's play in comparison with the brutality displayed in the series. The fight scenes from Netflix's Daredevil are miles better and way more convincing. 

If all that weren't bad enough, the 2003 movie also features an over- the-top Colin Farrell as Bullseye (and I don't mean over-the-top in a good way like I often do), a duller than dirt screenplay (boring), and a lot of bad CGI (the movie looks horrible). To put it bluntly, the movie stinks. I'm being terribly generous by giving it a 3/10.

3/10