Daredevil

I probably should warn you now, I am going to write a lot about movies, comics, sports and politics, with a dash of amateur theology just to make things a little spicy. This blog is mostly going to cover movies, comics and maybe a little politics (though I make no promises).

Daredevil is a great comic book character. For those of you who are not "in the know", Daredevil is a actually a blind attorney named Matt Murdock. Some of you might be asking "a blind superhero? How is that possible?" (the rest of you are asking, "don't I have something better to do with my time?"). Well young Matthew, was blinded by radioactive gunk in the eyes, which while blinding him, enhanced all of his other senses and allowed him to "see" echoes and vibrations (amazingly enough he was not given cancer or infertility). In addition to the whole blinding, Matt was raised by a washed up prized fighter, who was later killed during his comeback for not throwing a fight...Think "Cinderella Man" only a lot sadder. So Matt was left to fend for himself in Hell's Kitchen, NY.

Tragic story, huh? Well it gets a little better. Matt ends up being a great student and is able to rise above his tough upbringing to go to college. Then law school. Then pass the bar and become an actual lawyer in, you guessed it, Hell's Kitchen, where he opens a practice specifically designed to defend the poorest of the poor in one of New York's roughest areas. Oh, and when he can't beat the bad guys in the court room, he does it on the street while wearing a red suit with horns as Daredevil (did I mention that he is your classic tortured Catholic?). Really I would recommend reading Frank Miller's "Man Without Fear" graphic novel, it tells this origin better than I ever will. I would lend you my copy, but you might bend the pages.

Now I am going to begin talking about the movie, I will spoil the poop out of it. I am guessing though that if you wanted to see it, you would've made time to in the last two years. I enjoyed the movie. A lot of people didn't. For fans, they changed too much. For non-fans, the effects were cheesy. For Ben Affleck haters, it had Ben Affleck in it. But hey, I was a casual Daredevil fan when I saw it and I got to see it on Valentine's day with Donan (I love you honey!). Sure the action had too much wire work, and Elektra (Matt Murdock's doomed girlfriend) was as much a star as the movies namesake, but whatever it was fun and I dug the darker vibe of the movie.

Then the Director's Cut DVD came out.

I will now spit on the theatrical cut of the movie...
HHHHHHHWWWWWWAKKKKKKKKKKK........PLOOOOEEYYYYY!

Usually DC's (as you can see I am abbreviating "Director's Cut" because it takes too long to type) are not better. In fact they are usually reserved for making PG-13 movies, R movies by adding a sex scene. Typically they should be called "Director's Smut". Daredevil is the exception to that rule. This DC is a completely different vision for the movie and a vision that from where I am sitting calls into question are societal values.

Daredevil at his very core is a justice driven character. He has no interest in saving the world. He doesn't fight aliens or mutants or sea monsters, he fights crime. He fights criminals. He fights corrupt social institutions. For this reason his villains are often thugs, murderer's, rapists and of course the "Kingpin of crime" (think Al Capone, but only much, much fatter). Kingpin is a crimelord. He doesn't the control the world, or even the US, he wants to make a lot of money off of the weakest members of our society. You know, the people Daredevil fights for. In the theatrical cut of the movie you see these two as adversaries as well, they even fight at the end of the movie and Kingpin goes to jail. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that is that they are fighting because Kingpin killed Matt's father and girlfriend (Elektra), NOT because he is destroying Matt's home and his people. The DC changes this whole dynamic, and in turn the entire movie.

Remember Coolio? "Fantastic Voyage"? "Gangsta's Paradise"? That Coolio. He can act. Really. He's even in "Daredevil". Did you see him? The answer is no, because his entire character in cut from the movie. He played Dante Jackson in the DC. Dante is a crackhead accused of killing a woman of no consequence in Hell's Kitchen. No one believes when he says he didn't do it. Unfortunately since he was high and passed out at the time, he can't really prove his own innocence. Enter Matt Murdock and his law partner, Froggy Nelson. Matt, using his built in lie detector (his powers allow him to hear heartbeats, essentially he can tell is someone is lying to him) believes this societal nobody and agrees to help him. Well guess who is behind this murder and cover up. If you said "Kingpin", go order yourself a pizza. Dante's case ends up being the thread, that pulled hard enough, unravels the whole crime network! And who does this unraveling? The blind lawyer and his unimpressive friend. So while Daredevil beats the person of Kingpin physically, it is Matt Murdock and Froggy Nelson who kill the really danger of Kingpin, the crime network.

Deep huh? Well apparently too deep for the film company. They new what people really wanted, to see Sidney Bristow get to know Ben Affleck in the "Biblical sense".

Again, for those not in the know, Sidney Bristow is Jennifer Gardner's alias on the show Alias. She plays Elektra, a truly tragic character who has had to deal with the murder of both her parents and deals by becoming a really good assassin, and an on again off again lover to Matt Murdock. At least in the funny books. In the movies her dad is killed and sense she knows karate she goes to do something about it. In the book and in both movies Kingpin uses an assassin to kill her. However the screen time for Sidney is way different in the two versions of the movie, in the TC she is all over it, almost as much as Daredevil is. In fact she shares the poster with him. And got her own movie. Not so in the DC. Less screen time. Less focus and, get this, no sex.

No sex?! What is this world coming to? The Bennifer sex scene was filmed months after the movie had cut. It seems the studio had already kiboshed Dante and the whole "Blind Lawyer" thing and decided they needed a more "satisfying" relationship. Translation: boo justice, boo law, boo exposing crooked cops, boo complete characters and movie that makes sense, yay attractive people having sex! Ugh. Essentially these execs decided that the movie going public (read: us) don't want to see movies that are about defenders of justice, don't want to think, don't want to see a character who defends people that they step over; what they really want to see is attractive people. This makes me actually angry. I am offended that all the substance was removed from this flick. But I have a thought that gives me pause...what if these execs are right?

Close your eyes. Imagine you are in a grocery store. Now you are in the check out line. Look to your left. What do you see? "Jessica Simpson and Nick Lechay: Breaking up?", "Elvis alive, and engaged to Jennifer Aniston". The tabloids. Someone is buying these things. Actually a LOT of people buy these things. They also watch "Extra", "Entertainment Tonight" and "Insider". What they are not doing is volunteering at soup kitchen's. They're not picking careers based on who they can help. They're choosing happy thoughts about pretty people and trying not to pause to think about they people on the other side of that bridge, or a few stops down on the subway. And I am one of those people. I am not into celeb culture, but I choose a lot of happy, easy, brain numbing forms of entertainment, over asking how I can be a real Matt Murdock. The truth is, as I write this I don't feel very good. I feel convicted. I feel like I am ignoring my responsibilities as a Christian and as a person. Maybe that is why the movie was changed in the first place.