Every week we’re bringing you recommendations for great movies or TV shows streaming on Netflix. This week’s selection is…
“Daredevil” (9 out of 10) Based on characters created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett; Adapted for Netflix by Drew Goddard; Starring Charlie Cox, Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, Vicent D’Onofrio, Rosario Dawson, and Toby Leonard Moore. Rated TV-MA.
Finally the first of the Netflix Marvel television series has arrived. “Daredevil” began streaming yesterday and if my sphere of the world is any indication, people are gobbling it up. I didn’t have a chance to start watching it until almost ten last night, I watched two episodes and then got up early to watch more and if I didn’t have plans for most of today, I’d probably finish the season before the sun sets.
There’s no point beating around the bush on this one, it’s good. Surprisingly good.
I’ve been pretty skeptical of this series leading up to it. Despite Marvel’s proven track record with their characters’ adaptation since “Iron Man” I was a little let down by “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” and the last time Daredevil came to the screen it was lackluster. Full disclosure, I kind of enjoy the Affleck “Daredevil” movie. If I were to rank all comic book movies by quality it would be somewhere near the bottom but when all is said and done, I like super hero movies, even bad ones. Guilty pleasure.
Despite the free hallway pass I give to the live action movie I wondered how they would get past that stigma, how they could reinvent the character so as to not conjure images of a movie that the fanboys almost universally hate.
They pulled it off. What Christopher Nolan did for Batman, Drew Goddard has done for Daredevil.
They found a way to express Matt Murdock’s heightened senses without resorting to the radar vision of the previous film, Murdock’s movements don’t feel the slightest bit campy, rather they are the movements of a finely tuned and highly perceptive human being. The costume is subtle and seemingly easy to recreate. I predict it will make many appearances at conventions through the rest of the year.
Four episodes in and I’ve lost any doubts that I once had. I’ll gobble up all thirteen episodes in the next few days, then wait impatiently for what comes next. Daredevil precedes his comrades Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist to the small screen. Once they’ve all been properly introduced to the masses via individual series, they’ll all team up in a final Marvel mini-series “The Defenders.”
In the very first episode there are subtle allusions to the events of the MCU. While looking for office space, Matt and Foggy Nelson are told by a realtor that this particular building was barely touched by “the incident” a reference to the events of “The Avengers.” Core characters of the MCU are also mentioned as asides, though not by name.
It’s worth noting that while the Marvel movies have, so far, been pretty family friendly for the most part, this series is not. Though it exists in the same universe, these characters live much closer to the earth, the creative team doesn’t have the luxury of hiding the violence behind blue energy or comedic beats.
Hell’s Kitchen is a dark city and the series is equally so. In the first few minutes you’ve got a pretty good idea of what kind of show you’re watching and while Murdock does live by a moral code, he’s not above breaking bones and creating fear to get the information he needs.
The violence culminates into a spurting but beautiful blossom of blood in the third episode, without giving spoilers, there are two deaths in that episode that you won’t soon forget, you’ll know them when you see them. While the peak violence is implied rather than shown explicitly, it leaves a small enough gap for your imagination to fill in, horribly.
When a comic book adaptation fails it hurts more than an original work. When a character has decades of material already at your disposal, with proven arcs and elements you can only blame yourself if it fails. It’s clear that Drew Goddard and his team have mined the territory, found what makes the character most interesting, most believable, and most worth caring about, and put it on the screen. They pulled it off. What Christopher Nolan did for Batman, Drew Goddard has done for Daredevil.
While I haven’t yet finished the run, and there’s plenty of time for the tide to turn, if it maintains its course it will change the way the public sees the character, I’d anticipate a rise in the sales of Daredevil books in the coming months.
I’m also excited to see Marvel successfully creating a universe this expansive, when all is said and done we’ll have 21 movies and 7 live action series essentially telling the same incredibly detailed story, and to my knowledge nothing like that has ever been done on the screen before.
This series also gives me hope for what Goddard has planned for the future, he penned the script for “The Martian” and he wrote and will direct DC’s “The Sinister Six.” In addition he’s attached as writer to the screen adaptation of the novel “Robopocalypse” as well as a heretofore untitled Spider-Man reboot.
In short, this is the Daredevil we didn’t know we needed. It has taken what DC has done with their live action television series, and improved upon it. It’s well written, well acted, and intense. It’s everything that keeps you clicking that next episode button. I can’t wait to see what Netflix and Marvel have in store for us next.