Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

Long before Ben Afleck would play a dark brooding superhero who lost his parents, he would play a dark brooding superhero who lost his parents.

Ah, the days of pre-Disney Marvel movies. Nothing against post-Disney Marvel. The pre-Disney films just have a certain charm all their own. I can watch them without considering the events of 487 different shows and movies. I’m not waiting through the credits to see what crazy set up they’re setting up for the sequel. I could leave the theatre secure in the knowledge that the sequel was going to suck and I’d save my $1.50 for some other ridiculous schlock like National Treasure. Great times.

By the way, as far as ridiculous schlock goes, National Treasure is some of the best!

And yes, my town had a $1.50 theatre. Saw a lot of movies back then. They closed it after 100% of the chairs were finally deemed unsittable for human asses.

Holy crap! I loved this movie! Cheesy as heck! The little Matt Murdock kid doing flippety-flips. The fight/meet-cute on the teeter-totter. Daredevil jumping 30 feet up from a standing position. I know he’s a superhero but my suspended disbelief came crashing to the ground like so many giant pipe organ pipes as seen in this film. Love it!

The director’s special unrated non-theatrical extended super-sexy steel box cut is even better than the original too. I don’t remember what the extended cut was called. Dude! The scene where he has to just shut everything out with a sensory deprivation tank so he can get some sleep. Chilling. His hearing is so good, he can hardly escape the cries for help in the night. Wow. Kudos to the director for such a powerful scene.

It’s an unpopular opinion but I take issue with vigilantism at certain extremes. This is an interesting take though. Matt Murdock knows when people are lying and as a lawyer he sees first-hand injustice happening in the courts. He wrestles with this concept throughout the film and finds himself conflicted when a child is terrified by him after exacting some very deserved justice on some ne’er-do-well.

The execution might be cheesy from time to time but the themes of this film are dark and gripping. The balance between these two aspects is interesting and hilarious to witness.

Colin Farrell is perfect as the nut job villain, Bullseye. Just real enough to be captivating by an intelligent audience and yet crazy comic-booky enough to fuel my escapism. Did he kill a guy with a paperclip? Hey! Colin went over to Batman too!

I’ll level with you. It’s pretty stupid what happens to Elektra (Jennifer Garner aka Dolphin Girl). Personally, I liked her spin off movie alright. Yes, it did suck as predicted but I still liked it.

Michael Clark Duncan (rest in peace) was awesome as William Fisk aka The Kingpin. If ever there was a man 3 feet deep and 15 feet wide, it would be him. I would have loved to see him reprise the role in later installments, even into the MCU, but alas, he has passed on.

I could watch this film over and over again. I wish Ben had made at least one more. I wish he and the Kingpin would have a fight on a playground merry-go-round. I wish he would have been incorporated into the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films! I wish they made a 27 part mega movie where everything was intertwined and dependent on each installment! Oh wait. That’s what Disney did. Hmmm. A Pre-Disney MCU? Disney already brought Tobey into theirs. How about a couple Matt Murdocks? Disney’s basically doing whatever they want now right? Why not bring the rest? I don’t know about you but I could go for some more Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider.