Daredevil

[kneeshooter]

I really wanted to like it - honest. It was supposedly a more gritty, grown up kind of superhero film with heroes that need painkillers and have scars. Instead it was deeply deeply mediocre.

Yes there were some amusing one-liners "I need a costume!", and plenty of rats (real and CGI) - but it just didn't quite work. The acting was ok - Michael Clarke Duncan worked as the Kingpin (ignoring dire dialogue) but whenever Jennifer Garner smiled I thought there was a risk the lens of the camera would break. Good old Colin Farrell had a real touch of the Oirish about him, and Ben Affleck was ok - but the whole "not looking at people when they're talking and you're blind" thing - I tried that at GD and didn't feel it worked - you still look towards the noise.

I suspect a lot of the "issues" came down to the restriction on the director to deliver a PG-13 in the US, which meant some of the darker elements were only part-explored. But I was genuinely fearful that one bit of "dark" in the film was going to resolve in a happy ending - which thankfully it didn't. Also CGI sfx-actors still look awful to me - worse than blue-screen.

Anyway - from the trailers it looks like a good year for action movies... X2 (looked ok), Matrix 2 and 3 (looked ok also) and Equilibrium (looked like a re-imagining of Farenheit 451 and might be worth a mindless couple of hours). Actually - while I say "Good year for action movies" it might be like "Good year to watch the same wire-fu over and over again".

Spent some time chewing the fat also with Guy - who has given up LRP again. Until the next time I suspect!

All that, and now almost time for 24...

Comments

[dreamfire.livejournal.com]

not looking at people when you are blind... yes - my friend Abby is blind in one eye and has very little vision in the other, none in the dark - she turns her head to look at people - but she doesn't focus on them - now blind eyes can't focus, but neither did her eye that worked until we were talking about it when I was directing her at theatre... she then started trying to use focus more as a way of increasing her ability to communicate...utterly fascinating - as is the fact that she was 14ish when given a little telescope thing - and since she has had it she can remember images from when she was much younger as if she had seen them through it rather than with the vision she had at the time...

hmmm not a relevant comment really - but sort of leads on from the original point that yes blind people do turn their head, usually

[kneeshooter]

Phew - I was expecting someone to tell me I was being daft - after all it's only something I've "played" at. From an LRP PoV it's easy enough to point your head at someone rather than look deliberately over their shoulder. Mind you, when you're wearing a veil there's hardly much difference to be seen tbh...

[cutietrol.livejournal.com]

Let me add my own personal critique when I say: Daredevil? What a useless superhero. What's his super power? He can *see*. Wow, consider me amazed. It's like having paraplegic man whose amazing power is that he can walk around fine. Feeeeh.

Re:

[kneeshooter]

Erm, not quite. He's the "man without fear" and his ability to see is a little better than yours and mine due to the way he can predict movements based on the disturbances they cause in the air which is faster than the physical movement. Which I guess means that if it's subsonic then he's ok...

Hang on, why am I sitting here trying to have a vageuly sensible conversation about a superhero. Pah.

[cutietrol.livejournal.com]

So basically if you shoot at him with a rifle then he dies messily? "My name's Roy, and I'm in a super amount of pain right now".

Is it Man or CGI

[bellagrim.livejournal.com]

My biggest problem with Daredevil was the huge amount of flip-flopping CGI elements to it. It seemed that when he was running across the roof it was imperative that he leap on every object 'visible' to him. I appreciate that he is without fear....but does that really mean you have to leap up pipes, etc. just to get across the roof?

Anyway I guess this is just a taste for what is going to come as CGI seems to be making it big in films lately.