[wushuliu]

Watched two episodes of Marvel/ABC/Netflix's new show Daredevil and I feel like I've reached an impasse with the Marvel Fans. All around the web right now there are all these high profile reviews that say how great the show is.

I have no idea what show they were watching cause Daredevil is some of the most corny amateurish crap I've seen in a long time. The writing is flat and hokey, the acting is awful to mediocre, the direction is uninspired. However, the fight scenes are very, very good. In other words, this show is the equivalent of a Hong Kong action movie. Now if Donnie Yen were Daredevil then all would be forgiven. But this isn't a low budget Asian production - it's Marvel.

From the very start of the show I got a weird feeling it was not going to be good. The actor who plays Foggy Nelson is hands down one of the worst actors I have ever seen on a major television production. I don't know if he's best friends with someone involved on the show or a relative but I kid you not the second he opens his mouth it's like watching someone who just got cast in their first high school play. He's so bad that I got pulled right out of the show. I continued watching though because I thought, well, maybe there's a twist here, maybe it's some kind of deliberate performance. It isn't. Dude sucks. Maybe he dies early in the season. Here's to hoping because right now he takes up too much screen time for me to ignore and it just makes it more difficult for me to watch the show.

Then we get to Matt Murdock, Daredevil himself. Never seen this actor before but I am not impressed. He has no real charisma, his performance bland and uninteresting. Poor Rosario Dawson is wasted on this material. That's not necessarily a deal breaker, but unfortunately she has to deal with something that can cripple even the best actors: the script. Good Holy God the writing on this show is so flat and generic that it's like hearing every line from every superhero/procedural/legal something/boxer movie. I mean the flashbacks? I can't even take them seriously. The whole setup with the Dad and schmaltzy lines and the generic New York-But Not New York accents... I mean come ON. I can actually see the script as the actors talk, that's how jarringly generic the lines are. If you asked a screenwriter to write a script in 2 hours I am positive this is what they would crank out.

But like I said the fight scenes are surprisingly decent. Maybe like HK movies they decided to spend more time and budget on the fight scenes and to hell with everything else.

Part of the reason I was excited for this show was seeing D'Onofrio's performance. But now I dread it. It would suck to see such a phenomenal actor be once again made to wade through piss poor material.

I am going to keep watching until he shows up because I am too much of a fan of his not to, but to call this show a disappointment is an understatement.

But I think Marvel has reached a point now where it's like Apple, no matter how bad the product, there's a cultish adoration and degree to which whatever they do gets more of a pass just because, you know, Marvel. And I'm not drinking that Kool Aid.

Thumbs down.

[roscoeiii]

Wow, that's a corrective to the hype train on this show.

Very much looking forward to it, but now my expectations are a bit better managed. Which is prob a good thing.

Will report back on my impressions.

[ajzepp]

I was too tired after work to start it last night, but since Wushuliu generally disagree on things, I'm actually more eager to see it now lol.

[Tyson]

Agreed on the Foggy Morgan actor, dude is terrible.  I'd say so far it's about as good as the first season of Agents of Shield, which is not very.  The pieces are all there, just not executed at a high level. 

[kingdeezie]

I grew up lovingly reading comics, both Marvel and DC, so I wouldn't consider myself a fanboy of either publication house.

I have to completely disagree with you on this show, I think it is good, so far, and I am enjoying it. I just finished episode 5 last night. D'Onofrio's Kingpin is pretty great. Fisk, in this portrayal of the character, is calm and reserved, yet at the same time boiling under the surface. Every minute that he is on screen, you're watching a powder keg ready to explode. Knowing the character from the Spiderman and Daredevil comics of my youth, its both a fresh and familiar take on Wilson.

While Michael Clarke Duncan had the better physical attributes to play Kingpin, D'Onofrio has the chops to play the character with much more refinement and nuance.

The issue with the writing and acting is completely opinion based, and I can respect that you so drastically dislike it.

Its based off of a comic book though, and while that isn't an excuse for "poor writing," the "cheesiness" of the dialogue is inherit in the source material. Have you ever went back and read comic books from when you were a kid? The writing is everything you hate about the show. That's part of why it is so endearing.

The reason it is getting accolades from both "marvel fans," and critics, is that it does justice to the source material, and delves into what people loved so much about the Daredevil comics of the 80s and 90s, especially Miller's interpretation of the character.

Yes the dialogue is cheesy, and yes Matt Murdock is a little flat and lifeless. But, that is Matt Murdock. He is the marvel Batman, without the Bruce Wayne alter ego. He lost his father at a young age, and was stricken with a disability.

He is depressed and angry, but unlike Batman, in certain iterations of the character, Daredevil enjoys inflicting pain on the unjust. He likes to bring fear, pain, and desperation to those who inflict those same feelings on innocent people. But, at the same time, he is a hero, and a good person, who is just at odds with himself.

I loved the line in the first episode where he is sitting in the confessional telling the priest about how he used to see the devil in his father when he watched him fighting. About how when he was younger he didn't understand that part of his father, but now that he is older, he understands it all to well.

Murdock says something to the effect of, "I'm not looking penance father, I'm just asking for forgiveness."

Cheesy? Oh hell yes, but it invokes in me the same feelings I felt when I read the comics as a little kid. Daredevil is human, he is flawed.

I like the show. I don't think its the greatest TV show ever made. But, its the best representation of a live action Daredevil to this point in time. I also love how they subtly tied it into the avengers. That was a super cool nod.

 

I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

[wushuliu]

Okay well I have watched more episodes and fortunately the show does get better. Once D'Onofrio shows up there's a noticeable bump in quality and polish. I'm guessing the first two episodes were pilots before other casting was done. D'Onofrio, Dawson and Vondie Curtis Hall make up for a lot of shortcomings. Unfortunately Foggy and Karen are awful and I just fast forward through their bits. Same with the corny flashbacks. And does every other scene have to have some extended tangent/metaphor/soliloquy?

The fight scenes remain the best part of the show.

[ajzepp]

Okay, first of all, I completely agree with you guys about Foggy. Maybe one of the most annoying characters I've seen in a while...sort of like a pudgier, more annoying Steve Zahn.

That beign said, I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the ending of episode 2. That fight scene in the hallway was one of the best filmed, best choreographed sequences I've ever seen, movie or TV. Whoever directed that is one VERY talented individual.

This series also sounds and looks fantastic. I'll be the first to admit, I was very critical of Netflix a year or two ago when they made some changes. I've been a subscriber since 2001...fourteen years...and I was really thinking a while back I'd stop. But they ended up really redeeming themselves going in the direction of original programming. The membership is an incredible value these days.

[TQdB]

fortunately the show does get better. Once D'Onofrio shows up there's a noticeable bump in quality and polish. I'm guessing the first two episodes were pilots before other casting was done

I liked it..

One interview explained that the series and its early episodes were arranged and shot with such secrecy that initially Charlie Cox didn't know what role, or even property, he was auditioning for (and then came the endless gym workouts that Foggy doesn't go through ), and that the first thing filmed was the rooftop interrogation scene (I think from ep2) with Dawson in a hooded white disguise. During breaks Dawson and Cox discussed who it was that she was supposed to be. Their guess was Elektra. Easy to see how the chemistry might tend to improve once the main characters knew who they were.

D'Onofrio's often an amazing actor. His speech patterns as Fisk though made. Me. Think. He was. Rebooting. Kiefer Sutherland's. Role. From Dark. City. But even that improved as the series bloomed into a juxtaposition of antihero and nemesis, each presuming the high moral ground. Not bad.

[Rob Babcock]

I just finished episode one; I enjoyed it.  Sparse right now, but I see potential.

[wushuliu]

I liked it..

One interview explained that the series and its early episodes were arranged and shot with such secrecy that initially Charlie Cox didn't know what role, or even property, he was auditioning for (and then came the endless gym workouts that Foggy doesn't go through ), and that the first thing filmed was the rooftop interrogation scene (I think from ep2) with Dawson in a hooded white disguise. During breaks Dawson and Cox discussed who it was that she was supposed to be. Their guess was Elektra. Easy to see how the chemistry might tend to improve once the main characters knew who they were.

D'Onofrio's often an amazing actor.

As I suspected then. The first two episodes were basically the pilot. I think not revealing the characters to members of the cast was a mistake and it shows.

Donofrio walks a fine line but he elevates every scene he is in. Right now frankly he's stealing the show and I am way more interested in him than dd.

I'm hoping he gets to say this is my rifle there are many like it but this one is mine...

[roscoeiii]

Still really liking the show. And am finding it too intense to binge on. Need to catch my breath after each episode.

[Tyson]

Watched the whole thing - agreed it gets way better after the 1st 2 episodes.  And d'Onofrio definitely elevates things once he gets there.  I actually didn't think his agenda was all that evil, although his methods were certainly questionable.  Made for a more interesting dynamic with DD.

One thing I really liked that I haven't seen in other super hero shows was that the main character doesn't seem pre-destined to be DareDevil.  Unlike (say) the Batman movies, you always got the sense that Bruce Wayne was just going through the motions when he was struggling early on to become batman.  Yeah, he was "struggling", but you could clearly see it was just a transient thing.  Like he was always batman, and these are just some things that got him there.

With DD, I really got the sense that this guy really was having a hard time with this new role and it took a pretty big toll on him.  Sure, he could fight really well and do some cool stuff, but it was always a struggle.  And I loved the fight scene with the russians where he beats everyone down, nearly collapses himself, gets back up, and then so do about half the guys he just knocked down.  I thought it was a little homage to the original asian Old Boy, which had a very similar scene in a narrow corridor also.  Again, that sense of struggle and hard effort.

[Folsom]

Well, it can't be as bad as the Shield show.... But only in the way Shield is a turd, and Daredevil is urine, I'd flush it all anyway.

[wushuliu]

Well finished the first season. Didn't seem fair to bail before he got the suit. Now that I've seen the suit, I'll move on. I just can't overlook the character flaws and sloppy setups. Fisk's monologue in the truck about the Samaritan, I mean come on. He decides to own his criminality in a 90 sec. speech? And how did he become so powerful a businessman to begin with? The languages thing was a lazy shortcut to somehow imply he's smart but he doesn't even know the state of his finances?

The show ultimately makes him seem incompetent since he's pretty much flailing at his endeavors through the entire show and doesn't seem to have any real control over the people he works with. Aside from his strength I don't get how he's achieved what he's achieved.  There's no setup of either business acumen, criminal mastermind, nothing. And how did Vanessa go from date to inseparable love of his life? She's had all of 10 minutes of screen time. D'Onofrio's talents can only do so much against shoddy writing.

I don't know. I know I can be picky but I still feel that if Marvel's name wasn't involved that it wouldn't be getting nearly as much praise. I don't feel the need to watch any more. Here's to hoping the other Marvel shows are an improvement.

Spoiler Alert: Fozzy doesn't die. 

[ajzepp]

Well, it can't be as bad as the Shield show.... But only in the way Shield is a turd, and Daredevil is urine, I'd flush it all anyway.

Did you really feel it was necesary to post something this distasteful?

[Folsom]

Did you really feel it was necesary to post something this distasteful?

Hey now, I'm not the one who dumped a couple million into something we've all had to bare! Not that's some effort... 

[Rob Babcock]

Four episodes down and I'm starting to really get into it.  D'Onofrio is chilling and terrifying as Fisk!   At least when he needs to be.  I think the series is shaping up to be pretty damn good.

[paul79]

I'm digging this show! I'm 4 into it and can't wait to start back up.

[ajzepp]

Four episodes down and I'm starting to really get into it.  D'Onofrio is chilling and terrifying as Fisk!   At least when he needs to be.  I think the series is shaping up to be pretty damn good.

The end of the 4th episode was pretty damn intense!

[Rob Babcock]

The end of the 4th episode was pretty damn intense!

No doubt!