Daredevil (2003) * * *

Directed by:  Mark Steven Johnson

Starring:  Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Jon Favreau, Michael Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano, Colin Farrell

Matt Murdock is a Hell's Kitchen lawyer by day and a mask and costume wearing vigilante by night.    No, he isn't Batman, but he is indeed blind as a bat.    Sorry, I couldn't resist.    Daredevil, like Batman, becomes a crime fighter after being blinded by a toxic waste accident and the murder of his boxer father by the Kingpin (Duncan).    Despite being unable to see, his other senses were heightened by the accident, which makes him difficult to defeat.    No one would assume Murdock and Daredevil (with an emblazoned DD on his lapel) are one and the same because, well, Murdock is blind. 

Affleck, who later played Batman in three DC universe films, is Murdock/Daredevil and is plausible enough as the hero leading separate lives.    He not only has to contend with the seemingly untouchable and cigar-chomping Kingpin, but Bullseye (Farrell), whose deadly aim allows him to use anything lying around as a potentially deadly weapon.   Just ask the poor chatterbox who annoys him aboard a flight who comes into contact with a flying peanut.    I've never seen a guy throw a playing card and cut someone's throat, but Bullseye does with sadistic glee.    Farrell is appropriately intense and dangerous, complete with his native Irish accent which gives him an added element of villainy.    Not much riles up Bullseye except when he rarely misses his target, which is enough reason for him to want to destroy Daredevil.    

Further complicating matters is Murdock's fledgling romance with the mysterious Elektra Natchios (Garner), whose father is Kingpin's right-hand man and soon-to-be target.    She is no slouch in the buttkicking department either, as Murdock and others soon find out.    Matt and Elektra's foreplay consists of a mano y mano battle in a playground, but in a touching scene, Matt is able to "see" what Elektra looks like through raindrops.    I told you his other senses were heightened.

Daredevil takes place in the shadows, much like Batman, and in some cases darkness.    Matt is a disquieted soul hoping his vigilantism will take away his pain, but he finds this not to be the case.    The movie has religious overtones also, with Matt confessing his violent acts to a sympathetic priest.    Later, Daredevil and Bullseye have their final showdown in a church, with organ pipes used as weapons and a symbolic use of stigmata.   

Despite its darkness, I thought Daredevil was an enjoyable film, in which the superhero does things on his own without help from ten other superheroes.     Nowadays, there is safety in numbers with superheroes, and too much so.    Superhero films lately are CGI gone berserk; loud, mind-numbing exercises in mind-numbing sensory overload.    Too many subplots, too many characters, too little human interest, and too many incomprehensible action sequences.    Daredevil was made in a quieter time for superhero films and doesn't mind taking a moment to have people talk to each other.   

P.S.  (Spoiler alert).   I'm not a fan of the ending, in which the hero lets the villain live due to some inexplicable moral awakening.    The hero didn't mind killing off no-name hoods and Bullseye, but draws the line at the guy who ordered his father's death?    Not buying it.