Marvel's Daredevil (series, Netflix)

[Nefaro]

New Netflix series. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322312/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1


Better than I expected.  Primarily due to being more grim than the usual superhero flicks.  A nice bit of ye olde ultraviolence.  Not for those who don't like the sight of blood flying about or their heroes using a bit of torture during interrogation.  >:D


Also.. Vincent D'Onofrio playing the cold & brutal Kingpin.  O0

Worth a watch.

[BanzaiCat]

I watched the first episode and just wasn't into it. I've read a LOT of love from my friends on FB, loving this series like mad, but it just didn't hit the mark for me (not like Agents of SHIELD did). Maybe I need to watch it again, it took me a few tries to get through it.

[Nefaro]

I watched the first episode and just wasn't into it. I've read a LOT of love from my friends on FB, loving this series like mad, but it just didn't hit the mark for me (not like Agents of SHIELD did). Maybe I need to watch it again, it took me a few tries to get through it.

You enjoy Agents of Shield?

I tried watching the first episode, but it was so cheesy I didn't finish it.  The dialog was.. ugh.

I hadn't quite made up my mind about Marvel's Daredevil until after making it up to the end of the 4th episode.  But my doubts have been alleviated.

[BanzaiCat]

Yeah, I really did enjoy Agents of SHIELD. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but that's what made it strong. Dialogue was very comic-booky.

As for Daredevil, I'll give it another try. If you didn't like it until a few episodes in, maybe that's what I need to do. I had to do the same thing with some other series I didn't initially like either but really grew on me (Breaking Bad, Rescue Me, to name but two).

[Nefaro]

Yeah, give it a few episodes.  Like I mentioned, after seeing the fourth episode I was sold.

It's not a typical superhero movie/series.  Not very "comic-booky" as you put it, so it may seem a bit odd at first.  Rather dark in many parts, which is a nice change.  O0

[Nefaro]

Man.. D'Onofrio is excellent in this.  Just saw the episode with his character's backstory last night.   :o

[Nefaro]

They drug out some of the overdone melodrama with his friends, late in the series, but the grittier superhero portrayal was welcome.

[BanzaiCat]

I watched the second episode this weekend. It was much better than the first one.

I don't like Elden Henson at all, though ("Foggy"). He looks like Down Syndrome drove a short bus off of Sloth Cliff and into a pile of flaming wreckage below, where only his forehead survives and was repurposed to show IMAX films upon. His dialogue is great, but the look he gives, I dunno. I don't like him.

[JasonPratt]

To be fair, he looks a lot like Foggy Nelson would look. (Jon Faverau played him in the DD film after all, quite similarly to how he went on to play a similar Marvel character in the Iron Man films.)

The Marvelousness of Daredevil increases as the (mini)-series goes on. Even in the first eps there are tons of DD things being established that could be integrated into the MCU elsewhere (and probably will be). Even the sign on the door of their first office, showing who owns the building, sets up an obscure link to things like Fing Fang Foom(!!)! (A surprising amount of background detail is aimed at bringing Iron Fist and his assorted mythology into play.)

There's even a cute tie-in to something that only ever has appeared in Agents of Shield: Matt once orphaned was living at St. Agnes, where Shield 'based' Skye as a child. Given their relative ages, they may well have known each other!

[Nefaro]

To be fair, he looks a lot like Foggy Nelson would look. (Jon Faverau played him in the DD film after all, quite similarly to how he went on to play a similar Marvel character in the Iron Man films.)

The Marvelousness of Daredevil increases as the (mini)-series goes on. Even in the first eps there are tons of DD things being established that could be integrated into the MCU elsewhere (and probably will be). Even the sign on the door of their first office, showing who owns the building, sets up an obscure link to things like Fing Fang Foom(!!)! (A surprising amount of background detail is aimed at bringing Iron Fist and his assorted mythology into play.)

There's even a cute tie-in to something that only ever has appeared in Agents of Shield: Matt once orphaned was living at St. Agnes, where Shield 'based' Skye as a child. Given their relative ages, they may well have known each other!

You, sir, are a fountain of superhero lore.


Can't say I like the actor playing Foggy's part all that much, but not necessarily due to his acting abilities.  I was okay with him in this sereis until the couple episodes with his excessive melodrama, which is a writing problem more than an actor problem.  It was also an issue with the rest of the characters during that brief period.    Hopefully they're past establishing that stuff and can get back to stabbing surrendered villains in the neck, in the future.  I'll give them a base because the rest of the series has been pretty good.

[JasonPratt]

Once DD fights the Hand ninja (which is an excellent fight), the series decompresses hugely in the back 1/3 or 1/4. It feels like they had about 10 eps of story for 13 eps of series; and/or perhaps (somewhat legitimately) thought Matt needed time in-story to heal enough for the final fight.

Having finished the series a while back and so having a week+ to think about it, I'm going to take a minority countervailing view.

Prepare thyselves.

...


......

I think the biggest (maybe the only serious) mis-step in the series, is the Kingpin. Specifically how he was written.

Let your minds be shriveled by another minority position I'm about to take: I thought the DD movie wrote the Kingpin better (despite the obvious lack of development).

(Which DD movie? Either one, the one with Elektra and Bullseye, or the one with the Hulk.)

As long as I'm revealing myself to be a completely uncritical philistine: overall I thought the DD movie (the one with Ben Affleck) was better. At least I enjoyed it consistently more. I went back to watch it again recently to be sure if I was remembering that feeling rightly; and I enjoyed it even more again than on previous viewings.

(And yet in the lowest deep, a lower deep! I much prefer the theatrical cut, despite missing Coolio's subplot. The director's cut is more nonsensical.)


Does that mean I think the new TV series is bad? No, far from it. I just enjoyed the theatrical movie more from a few years ago.


Does that mean I think the TV series Kingpin portrayal is bad? Not at all. But, aside from the trivial problem of repeatedly feeling like he was going to ask for "a cup of water... sugar water... more.... more... mmmmggghh" (thanks to D'Onofrio's eclectic line readings), I think (or maybe feel) the writers made a big mistake in trying to humanize him and make him sympathetic. Or from trying too hard.

The Kingpin (the writers are clearly embarrassed at that name for no good reason seeing as how he's supposed to be a secret mobster who in reality would have some sort of code name -- a thug gabbles it briefly during an interrogation before being cut off by DD before he can even finish saying it  :P ) ought to be an operatic villain of massive ego only just slightly larger than his competence. Before he actually appears in the story, that's the image he's clearly trying to project. But then the series spends time making him a woobie. Lots and lots of time.

I'm pretty sure the intention was to contrast his awkwardness at courting and winning his wife (which is a good idea, his character truly loves her), with his role as secret super-mobster. But the way it plays out, we barely ever see him being grandiosely competent and menacing at being the mobster. We see him sad and conflicted and tiptoeing around his confederates. Even his war with the Russian brothers comes about because of a vicious petulance that he managed to capitalize on but which could have ruined his plans. That fundamental lack of self-control routinely crumbles his character at every step. At the end, his remaining confederates blame Vanessa for making him soft, but we practically never got to see the competency which (presumably) got him into his position to start with. Even in the otherwise excellent scene where he and DD speak (over radio) for the first time, Fisk acts half-apologetic for the situation.

Can that be a good and interesting character? Sure. But it's such a radically divergent presentation that he might as well have been named Filson Wisk Notakingpin. ;)

Someone could argue that these 13 eps are as much his origin story as Daredevil, and now that he has accepted that he is the "evil impulse" instead of the "Good Samaritan" (a great little scene which otherwise exemplifies the characterization problems here), he'll be up to full threat mode later. But it's still backward. The Kingpin is supposed to be a super-competent villain whose heart can be seen on rare occasion such as when he's dealing with Vanessa. This isn't supposed to be his origin story, he's already in place and has already gotten to the top. How that happened in his state, who the hell knows. The other compatriots, even Owl-dad, seem far more competent at their criminal jobs than he is.

Put another way, when you're supposed to have earned the respectful cooperation of a Chinese alien who knows Iron-Fist level kung-fu, and a high ranking ninja officer who presumably serves even scarier authorities, you had better be the Kingpin from the comics. Not the D'Opin from the TV series. Otherwise the grumpy supervillain accountant dad will take matters into his own hands.

Put another way: at every moment in the series, loyal best-friend Wesley acted more like the Kingpin than Milson Whisk the Kindapin did. Which is probably why the writers thought he had to leave the series. So the Kingpin could sort-of be the Kingpin instead.


On the other hand, Stick was a delight from start to finish. 


Now I call upon the internets to promptly supply a video mixing the Bug's lines from Men In Black with footage from the TV series.  >:D

[JasonPratt]

Put another way: Clancy Brown played a more Kingpinny Kingpin, and even injected some nuance, in the PS3 Spider-man game Web of Shadows. (Admittedly working from his epic and masterful portrayal of Lex Luthor in the DCAU for many years.)

[mirth]

I watched the first 3 episodes of Daredevil yesterday. I'm impressed so far. The fighting is brutal, the way it should be.

I like the nods to the MCU. Murdock's dad wins the fight against Crusher Creel, which the producers confirmed is the same character who becomes Absorbing Man as shown in Agents of Shield.

http://comicbook.com/2015/04/08/marvel-confirms-daredevil-and-agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-connection/

[BanzaiCat]

I haven't watched this in a while...I'll have to restart it. Sadly I'm not finding a lot of win on Netflix now, at least not that I've already seen.

[mirth]

Sadly I'm not finding a lot of win on Netflix now, at least not that I've already seen.

+1 It's slim pickings at the moment. I re-watched Cheers for the umpteenth time.