Daredevil vs Batman Returns

 

Daredevil is one of my favorite comics, but the movie had me a little, I don’t know, uninvolved.  So, in an attempt to sort things out some and gain a new perspective on the movie, I called Cliff. Of all of my friends who read too many comics, Cliff reads the most.

Ryan:  Hey Cliff.

Cliff:  Hey.

Ryan:  You busy?

Cliff:  Just reading comics. So yes. I’m very busy.

Ryan:  Which are you reading?

Cliff:  Daredevil.

Ryan:  Cool. Actually, that’s perfect.  You seen the movie yet?

Cliff:  Yeah, that’s why I’m reading the comic.

Ryan:  So, it put you in the mood for comics?

Cliff:  No. Well kind of. I’m reading it to try and forget the movie.

Ryan:  Is it working?

Cliff:  No. No it’s not.  It’s like when I’m drunk and brush my teeth to sober up.

Ryan:  So, I take it you didn’t like Daredevil: the movie.

Cliff:  Yeah, you could say that.

Ryan:  Why?

Cliff:  It’s so…I dunno, pretend, or something.

Ryan:  Yeah, it was like watching a movie about people making a superhero movie.

Cliff:  Exactly.  I kept waiting for Affleck’s assistant to run on with his cell phone or a Red Bull.

Ryan:  He looked good though, right?

Cliff:  Yeah, looked like Daredevil to me. Costume was cool.

Ryan:  Yeah. His hair, though…

Cliff:  Dude.

Ryan:  I know.

Cliff:  What kind of Just For Men bullshit was that?

Ryan:  Ben Affleck is not a natural redhead.

Cliff:  Not in the slightest. Neither was the kid.

Ryan:  The kid was worse.

Cliff:  It was like magic marker red. Guess I’m being picky.

Ryan:  Well, if you even notice the hair, something else must be up.

Cliff: Like maybe the cheesy sets?

Ryan:  I thought the sets were cool.  Dark, like in the Tim Burton Batman movies.

Cliff:  I guess. But they kept doing that fast sweep of stock New York footage. Over and over, between almost every scene. New York, New York, New York, every time. Yes, I get it: your film takes place in New York.

Ryan:  Well, the comic is set in New York too.

Cliff:  Okay, but if you’re going to show what looks like real city shots between scenes, then why use that cheesy, under-lit rooftop set over and over for the fight scenes?

Ryan:  Good point.

Cliff:  And there was never any sense of where anyone was. It was just endless rooftops to jump off of and land on.

Ryan: Lots of jumping.

Cliff: Superhuman-single-bound jumping. Spider-man jumping.

Ryan:  Well it’s all wires and computers now. They think that’s what we want.

Cliff:  Even in the fights.  The one at the end is the worst.  In the church.  The church that kept getting taller and taller.  The higher they climbed, there was always more church.  Big fake church.  Aren’t there humans alive who still know how to climb?  It was like watching a video game.  The mountain climber on Price is Right looks more realistic.

Ryan:  It was cool to have them fighting in the church. Nice little nod to the comic readers.

Cliff:  I guess so, but there is not one moment in that movie where people are fighting where it really seems as if anyone is fighting. Like the stuff with Elektra?  You could almost hear them counting.  I would rather see a Batman Returns style fight where they’re taking actual human-sized steps and making contact when they punch. It might not be acrobatic and Matrixy, but at least there’s a little bit of danger involved.

Ryan:  Yeah, Elektra took flight every time she jumped.

Cliff: She was like Shelly Long jumping cliff to cliff.

Ryan:  Yeah, Elektra’s all “ten years of ballet, jackass!”

Cliff: And what was up with her workout? Her weird Flashdance exercise with the knives?

Ryan:  Hold on a sec. We gotta backtrack a little. We just referenced Outrageous Fortune.  We must never speak of this conversation.

Cliff:  It has George Carlin.  We’re in the clear.

Ryan:  Close one.  You also mentioned Batman Returns.  You really think that’s a better movie than Daredevil?

Cliff:  In nearly every way.

Blackbelt:  Explain.

Cliff:  You know that scene right after Selina has become Catwoman and saved the woman from the mugger?  When they’re at Max’s office?

Ryan:  Yeah.  And they’re all shocked to see her.

Cliff:  Yeah.  Max thought she was dead, and Bruce saved her as Batman during the fight with the circus gang.  Selina’s just messing with them, telling the story about the nuns at her school, and about that boy—

Ryan:  “He’s dead now.”

Cliff:  Yeah, in that husky voice.  That voice, man.  I love that, the subtle changes after her accident.  It’s not like she gets all orange-wigged or anything.

Ryan:  What is it with Schumacher and orange wigs?

Cliff:  I’m so glad he never had an opportunity to direct Catwoman.  She would have had like ten costumes and a harem of cat guys and cat cars and way too much glow-in-the-dark black-light crap.  She’s perfect in Batman Returns.  There’s more characterization in that scene in Max’s office than in the entire Daredevil movie. Or the other Batman movies for that matter.  And it’s all motivated.  The shifts in character are all well-timed and played out.  And it’s all so frickin’ perverse.

Ryan:  I think Selina’s breakdown in her apartment is one of the best movie scenes of the nineties. And weirdest. When she’s playing her messages and chugging the milk it keeps shifting back and forth between sexy and scary.  You don’t know what she’s gonna do.  And then she ends up doing basically what you thought she would, but way more than you thought.

Cliff:  Exactly.  She gets a full origin.  She’s not treated as a fringe character.  She has a life and thoughts of her own.  Apply that to Daredevil and you’d come up pretty short.

Ryan:  Well Electra has an origin.

Cliff:  Her mom told her not to be a victim. She can fly from the teeter-totter because her mom said ‘don’t be a victim.’

Ryan:  Well, there’s also the stuff with her dad.

Cliff:  Yeah, but even that seemed kind of false.  They have no life on screen, so there’s no chance for us to care about him, or really even see that she does.  Their father/daughter bond is reduced to a short limo ride.

Ryan:  Isn’t that always the way?

Cliff:  Plus, and I can’t emphasize this enough:  When Batman hits those gang members without looking, and it’s all POW and he just drops them with one fist?  It feels real. Michael Keaton has those crazy eyes and he makes you believe it.  When he head-butts Selina and then she backflips away, it’s real pain followed by real movement.  And I’m sorry, but her one lick across Batman’s face is sexier than ten playground fights, and it doesn’t require a single computer.

 Ryan:  I still say Elektra’s workout is cool. You really didn’t like it?  She was getting ready, man. She was training.

Cliff:  Okay, but think about her workout for a sec:  it’s big sandbags that drop from the ceiling.

Ryan:  Right.

Cliff:  And she stabs them with her knives.

Ryan:  Right.

Cliff:  And she’s all spinning them and posing, and the bags drop, like right on time.

Ryan:  So.

Cliff:  So, that’s a workout?  She destroyed her equipment.  Is this a regular thing? Some sort of ritual?  Sandbags drop from the ceiling and she stabs them?  Who resets it for her?  Is it her daily routine?  Just a one time deal?  Was she up in the rafters hangin’ sandbags, thinking how important this training was to her revenge?

Ryan:  Well, it looked good. And it fit the song.

Cliff:  HATE THE SONG.

Ryan:  Yeah?

Cliff:  HATE ALL THE SONGS.

Ryan:  Which ones?

Cliff:  The ones that were all “Here’s who this character is!  Here’s what he’s thinking!”  Why not just write them some dialogue? It’s so lazy, just to give someone a pop song to define their character.

Ryan:  Like who?

Cliff:  Okay, Kingpin’s all “We gotta get Bullseye,” or whatever, and we cut to an Irish pub, where Bullseye is shooting darts and listening to House of Pain. Jeez, why not just have him eating Lucky Charms and whistling about his soap?

Ryan:  Bullseye was cool though.

Cliff:  Bullseye was cool.  He was so cool, for a second I thought he was Australian.  Catching the broken glass was cool, and all the ridiculous cape-tossing, and eye-bugging.  Bullseye was fun and way underused.

Ryan:  Yeah, he seemed a little edited out, or something.  Like Coolio.

Cliff:  Ah, poor Coolio.

Ryan:  Okay, so we found something we liked:  Bullseye.

Cliff:  And I liked all the sensory stuff.  Like how Daredevil sees by hearing.

Ryan:  Yeah, in the rain.

Cliff:  That’s what I was thinking of.  I would have loved another scene of that in place of, say, the ridiculous we’re-meeting-in-a-cute-way-and-soon-we’ll-be-kissing fight in the playground.

Ryan:  That was weird and clumsy and out of character for everyone involved.

Cliff:  Thank God Foggy missed it.

Ryan:  Hey, Favreau.  Something else I liked.

Cliff:  Yeah, he was trying his best.  You can tell he would have liked to have written himself some dialogue, instead of all the cheesy schtick.

Ryan:  Like what?

Cliff:  He did a spit-take for cryin’ out loud. And he was all feeling up the statue? Well, he is kind of chubby, and he’s the sidekick, so I guess they thought he’d be Dom to Ben’s Burt.

Ryan:  At least there weren’t any bloopers at the end.

Cliff: I can think of a couple that made the movie.

Ryan:  Which ones?

Cliff:  I’VE GOT WORK TO DO.

Ryan: And he was looking right at us when he said it.

Cliff: I’VE GOT WORK TO DO.

Ryan:  Okay. Moving on.

Cliff:  I’VE GOT WORK TO DO.

Ryan:  Next problem please.

Cliff:  Well, they spent so much of the movie explaining Matt Murdock’s life as a blind man.  His apartment was immaculate and had all those nifty modern blind-guy inventions.

Ryan:  Yes.  Lots of details.

Cliff:  Yeah, nice touch.  Until later, when they’re doing it on the rug in front of his fireplace.  Let’s see, he’s blind and keeps his apartment so tidy and organized that no mistake is possible in his daily routine…but he’s got a roaring fire?  And how fun is a big fire for a guy with heightened senses?  Wouldn’t all the crackling and burning wood be a nightmare for him?

Ryan:  Yeah.  I hadn’t thought about that.  Anything else?

Cliff:  Yeah.  This one really pisses me off. Elektra has this necklace that Matt admires, and he’s all “you should get one in Braille” or whatever.

Ryan:  Yeah.

Cliff:  And at the end, when they set up her spin-off or the sequel or whatever, he finds her necklace, only this time it’s got Braille writing on it.

Ryan:  Right.

Cliff:  And we know it’s Braille.  Even if you weren’t familiar with it before--say if you’d never been to an ATM or McDonalds bathroom--you were familiar with it by that point, cause there was a lot of Braille in the movie, right?

Ryan:  Yep.

Cliff:  So, he touches the necklace, and out loud, he says “Braille,” and then kinda grins, like “Hm…I wonder if she could be alive?  I better go buy an Entertainment Weekly and see for myself.”

Ryan:  What’s wrong with that?

Cliff:  He read it out loud.

Ryan:  So.

Cliff:  And instead of saying the word that was engraved on the necklace, he said “Braille”.  That’s like looking at a word on a piece of paper and saying “English”.

Ryan:  I think you watched the movie a little closer than I did.  I never even thought about that.

Cliff:  But now that you are…?

Ryan:  That’s incredibly dumb.  Why didn’t they just pick a word for it to say? Unless it actually said “Braille”, in which case you owe them an apology.  So, that it?

Cliff:  Well, Kingpin was cool, and looked enormous, and was barely in the movie, so it’s hard to complain about him.  And the law stuff was all dumb, but I don’t think anyone expected the law stuff to be accurate. If I wanted to see lawyers I’d watch The Practice.

Ryan:  So, you’re saying you don’t want to see lawyers.

Cliff:  That’s what I’m saying.

Ryan:  And I take it you won’t be seeing Daredevil a second time.

Cliff:  Well, not a third anyway.

Ryan:  You already saw it twice?

Cliff:  Yeah.  Happens with every single comic book movie.  I get so excited about seeing a superhero come to life that I’m just high for the whole two hours. I get all nervous and nerd-ous and can barely concentrate cause I love it so much. Then I see it again, cause it rocked, and the second time I always find myself noticing things like “Hey, Batman just stomped a hole in the floor of his car. That’s ridiculous.  Daredevil crunches up painkillers with his mouth hanging open like a Muppet who just had his wisdom teeth removed. That’s ridiculous.” Stuff like that.

Ryan:  So, you admit that Batman Returns isn’t perfect?

Cliff:  Of course it’s not.  The Penguin scenes haven’t aged so well, even though DeVito and Christopher Walken go completely overboard, which is fun from those two. And when I watch it, I tend to skip the scenes with the Ice Princess.

Ryan:  Was that Anna Nicole?

Cliff:  No, but it might as well have been.

Ryan:  So, what have we got here?  Batman Returns is still fun and sexy and I probably should watch it again.

Cliff:  You should.

Ryan:  And Daredevil?  Are you saying a definite “no” to a third time?

Cliff:  Nah, I’ll wait for the DVD.

Daredevil: C
Batman Returns: B+