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Daredevil
20th Century Fox Film Corporation

Daredevil reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 42 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.2 out of 10
based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 87 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for action/violence and some sensuality

Starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Farrell, Jon Favreau, Joe Pantoliano, David Keith, and Coolio

Ben Affleck stars as the blind Marvel Comics character who is a lawyer by day and vigilante by night.


GENRE(S): Sci-fi  
WRITTEN BY: Mark Steven Johnson
Stan Lee (comic book & characters)
Bill Everett (characters)
Frank Miller (characters)
 
DIRECTED BY: Mark Steven Johnson  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: July 29, 2003 
Video: July 29, 2003 
Theatrical: February 14, 2003 
RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

78
Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
In short, the actors deserve a big round of applause -– especially Affleck, for finally wiping the smug look off of his face (OK, 80% smug-free); Garner, for her dead sexy mix of attitude and adrenaline; and the grunting, googly-eyed Farrell, for … well, for being "fookin’" nuts, I guess.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie is, in short, your money's worth, better than we expect, more fun than we deserve.
Read Full Review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Not woeful, not wonderful, merely watchable.
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63
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Brought to the screen with a mix of jaunty humor and jagged violence that should have worked more effectively than it does.
Read Full Review
63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
It's an adequate superhero yarn, but, hopefully, it's not the best of the burgeoning genre that 2003 has to offer.
Read Full Review
60
TV Guide Frank Lovece
The movie's physical violence isn't gratuitous -- it's the emotional violence that makes this a movie for grown-ups, not kids.
Read Full Review
60
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
It isn't a great film, or even a greatly original one. Still, it has many grace notes, and interesting oddities.
Read Full Review
60
Film Threat Michael Dequina
A faithful translation of the character and one of his more memorable tales on the page; it satisfies as an adventure and as a more intimate story.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Its overall effect is distinctly underwhelming.
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50
Film Threat Kevin Carr
If you manage to sit through the whole film, don’t leave before the humorous tag in the credits.
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50
Slate David Edelstein
Johnson rips off a lot of "Batman," especially in the cathedral climax, but that's not so bad: The movie looks best when it looks like other, better movies.
Read Full Review
50
LA Weekly John Powers
Johnson clearly digs the idea of Daredevil as an agonized hero, slathering the screen with gloomy lighting and Catholic imagery, yet the movie has far less emotional weight than, say, "Spider-Man" (whose building-hopping pyrotechnics it often appears to be copying).
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50
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The film is at its worst, however, when Daredevil takes over. That's partly because Affleck, a handsome fellow with possibly the most inert film presence of any actor since Sonny Tufts, looks ridiculous in Daredevil's red leather pantsuit and horned mask.
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50
Variety Todd McCarthy
This franchise-hungry champion of the underdog brings no sense of fun to his pursuit of bad guys; it's just the fate he's stuck with.
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50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Though it begins as a praiseworthy depiction of a unique man, it turns into a formulaic disappointment long before the overly violent end... Comic-book adaptations must remain open to sequels, but this kind of coy cowardice is despicable.
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50
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Alone among the cast, Farrell seems to understand that this movie -- which is lazy and stoned, for all its loud music -- needed somebody to go ape-shit, to pretend to give a crap or at least to have fun.
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50
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Unfortunately, Garner doesn't have as much screen time as her prominence in the advertising would indicate: Daredevil has a hard time staying alive when she's not on the scene.
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50
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
For all its ambition, Daredevil can't overcome the fact that at its colorful center lies a perfect blank in a bad suit.
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50
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Daredevil the movie strains itself trying to catch up with Sam Raimi's web-slinging megasmash. It's a faceless copy, right down to the muscle-rock groaning on the soundtrack.
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50
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Like Affleck himself, the film is perfectly satisfactory without being deeply satisfying.
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50
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Slick, expensive and filled with good-looking actors flexing muscles, but once it grabs our attention it doesn't really reward it...this movie doesn't have fear -- or sheer wonder and marvel -- enough.
Read Full Review
42
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Daredevil is the sort of half-assed, visually lackadaisical potboiler that makes you rue the day that comic-book franchises ever took over Hollywood.
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42
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Far too often, the film has to submit to the inevitable and stop so that Affleck can struggle like a yoga student to bend his face into a human emotion. He even cries. So might you.
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40
Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
A shame Johnson couldn't give the movie over to Bullseye, since Farrell displays more danger with a cocked brow and sharpened pencil than Affleck with pages of melodramatic mush he can't force out without sounding like a high-school drama student with a sore throat.
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40
The New Yorker David Denby
The movie is derivative, flat, halfhearted, its squareness unrelieved by irony or fantasy. [3 March 2003, p. 94]
40
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This dull actioner, written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson, uses voice-over to hurry along Daredevil's genesis tale, and Affleck's rigid performance is a perpetual drag on the story.
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40
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Casting Affleck would have paid off had the conflicted, acerbic star of “Boiler Room,” “Changing Lanes,” or even “Bounce” shown up. Instead we're left with the cardboard hero of “Armageddon” and “The Sum Of All Fears,” a caretaker leading man wholly dependent on the quality of the movie around him. Sadly, there's not much of that.
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40
Newsweek David Ansen
Torn between moody grandiosity and cartoonish mayhem, Daredevil tries to have it both ways, and succeeds at neither.
Read Full Review
38
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Mind-numbing, would-be comic-book franchise, which often seems as blind as its hero -- not to mention deaf and dumb.
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38
USA Today Mike Clark
Kevin Smith shows up briefly as a lab technician in the miserable Daredevil, and that's a pity. This is a movie that desperately needs the presence of Smith's trademark sidekicks Jay and Silent Bob, with Smith as Bob, ragging worse than ever on his old pal Ben Affleck.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
For the most part, Daredevil doesn't take a single dare; it travels the road much trod, even if it's through the midtown air.
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30
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Tacky and disposable.
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25
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
How did an embarrassment of comic-book riches become simply an embarrassment as a movie?
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25
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
An action blockbuster that's one of the biggest misfires in its genre since "Godzilla."
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20
Village Voice Ed Park
Affleck and impressively amazonian Alias star Jennifer Garner (as the ninjitsu-savvy daughter of a wealthy tycoon) are lankier than "Spider-Man's" Maguire and Dunst, which is good if you like lanky, but their relationship substitutes cliché for chemistry.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 87 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

(Anonymous 555] gave it a10:
I don't understand why people think this is so bad, just remove the terrible music and the crappy fight scene in the park and you have a great movie. I think if they released the director's cut in cinemas it would have made a lot more money. You should watch the director's cut it awesome!

[Anonymous] gave it a7:
The only real problem was that Ben Affleck was not the best. But this movie is great.

Jim P gave it a1:
Piece of crap. Especially when that mute keeps saying "I never miss!" what's that about?! One of THE worst films I have ever seen. Ben Affleck should be ashamed. Period.

Robert J gave it a2:
In the genre, this film is a prime example of how not to do it. As a movie in general, it is absolutely lousy. Predictable, cliche, with rather uninspired action sequences, and average acting at best. A waste of time for anyone who doesn't have a particular interest in the main character.

Sam gave it an8:
I can see how people hated this movie and loved. I for one and none of them, I am one of the people that just flat out enjoyed it. I liked the effects, the dialouge isn't that bad and it was sometimes pretty funny. I liked this movie. In fact, I liked it a lot.

Pon R. gave it a7:
Not bad. Expected it to suck, but it actually worked within the parameters of the given story. Good fun.

Hayden M gave it a10:
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner do amazing in this great, dark movie.

Read more user comments...

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