YMMV / Daredevil (2003)

• Awesome Music: Has its own page.
• Complete Monster:
  • Bullseye is a swaggering Psycho for Hire who prides himself on his unerring aim and his total lack of regard for human life. Retained by Wilson "The Kingpin" Fisk as a troubleshooter, Bullseye is a mess of barely contained violence who regularly murders in his off time. Over the course of the film he kills a man for insulting him in a bar; chokes an elderly woman to death for talking too much on a plane; murders another man in order to steal his motorcycle; and stabs one of Fisk's guards to death with pencils after deciding he'd rather not go through security. That's in addition to killing Nikolas and Elektra Natchios, and two of their bodyguards, on Fisk's orders, and trying to hunt down an already wounded Daredevil for the heinous crime of making him miss.
  • Wilson Fisk in the director's cut is worse than in the theatrical version. Fisk started out a hitman who killed Jack Murdoch, before rising into a powerful businessman and The Kingpin of crime in New York, controlling the criminal element in the city and helping criminals avoid jail time. Introduced killing two of his bodyguards for no discernible reason, when the public becomes suspicious, Fisk orders the murder of his former business partner Nikolas Natchios, intending to have him framed as the Kingpin, calling in Bullseye to do the deed. Fisk also has a prostitute murdered when she was leaking information she got from what of his associates. When Matt Murdoch interrogates a Dirty Cop on Fisk's payroll, he learns that when Fisk calls a hit on someone, he has the target's whole family killed as well, with Fisk ordering Bullseye to go after Nikolas's daughter Elektra. When Daredevil finally confronts Fisk, Fisk unmasks him as Matt, telling him that his killings were "just business" and, when beaten, threatens to get his revenge on Matt by revealing his identity.
• Cult Classic: Thanks to the director's cut, this movie now has a cult fanbase who see this as one of Marvel's most underrated movies and think that should have received a sequel.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Bullseye is easily the most popular character, for obvious reasons.
• Evil Is Cool: Wilson Fisk, an extremely charismatic and well-dressed gangster who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.
• Foe Yay Shipping: There was fanfiction set in the film's world (after Elektra) that ships Elektra with Bullseye despite the fact, or because, he murdered her father and her.
• Friendly Fandoms: With The Punisher (2004), Hulk, the X-Men Film Series and the Blade Trilogy for being adult oriented and gritty Marvel films from the early 2000s.
• Genius Bonus: At the end of the movie, Bullseye hits a fly. In Brazil, the expression "na mosca", which roughly translates into "at the fly", is used for the same meaning Americans say "bullseye".
• Ham and Cheese: Colin Farrell as Bullseye. Bullseye really enjoys killing people, and it shows in how much Colin's enjoying this role.
  Bullseye: *after being shot in the hands* 'You took me hands! You took away me haaaaands!!!!
• Heartwarming Moments: Towards the end of the film, Matt goes to the Olympic Theatre, where his father was killed by Kingpin, with a rose in his hand. He says "This is for you, Dad." and drops the rose, where it lands near the main entrance.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • According to Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck mainly took the role of Daredevil because he felt it was the closest he'd ever get to playing Batman. Yeah, about that...
  • The psychopathic and cartoonish criminal that Matt faces down in the film's first act is named Jose Quesada. At the time of the film's release, it was merely one of several Shout Outs that referenced the names of creators who'd worked on Daredevil's comic book, but in hindsight, after the massive fan revolt against Editor Joe Quesada's ill-received "Civil War" and "One More Day" storylines, many of the fans who were left unamused by Quesada's antics tend to find this sequence hilarious. The fact that Daredevil hunts him down definitely works as a Moment of Awesome for them as well.
  • Kingpin's Race Lift from white in the comics to black in the film, thanks to the little known fact that the character was originally supposed to be black in the comics but was changed to white to avoid accusations of racism. Plus, he'd already been voiced by a black actor in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
  • During Daredevil and Bullseye's fight inside the church, a number of bats interrupt after they pull down a pipe in the organ. In 2013, it was announced that Ben Affleck was going to be the new Batman, starting with the film ultimately titled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
  • Affleck's adamance after the film's release (and backlash) that he wouldn't play another superhero.
    Affleck: "By playing a superhero in Daredevil, I have inoculated myself from ever playing another superhero... Wearing a costume was a source of humiliation for me and something I wouldn't want to do again soon."
  • At a party, Matt is confronted by reporter Ben Urich about Daredevil. A similar scene happens in Batman v Superman with Clark Kent confronting Bruce Wayne about Batman.
  • The film has often been mentioned on This Very Wiki as being similar to and a pioneer for Nolan's Batman films.
  • Jon Favreau acting in a movie based on a Marvel comic, years before he would go on to direct two Iron Man films and play Harold "Happy" Hogan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Furthermore, Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock makes a cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home opposite Favreau's Happy Hogan.
  • Colin Farrell would then be cast as The Penguin in The Batman (2022), making him the second actor from this film to jump ship to a Batman film adaptation and making the fight between Bullseye and Matt a battle between Batman and The Penguin.
• Improved by the Re-Cut: The film's reception markedly improved with the release of the Director's Cut, which restored 30 minutes of footage, including an entire missing subplot, and placed emphasis on aspects of Daredevil's character that went underrepresented in theaters, particularly his Catholicism and his skills as a lawyer. As a result, the movie gained far more defenders than it did the first time around, and has effectively replaced the theatrical cut as the definitive version, with Fox not even bothering to bring the original to Blu-ray.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Matt lost his father as a child, runs a failing law firm due to his refusal to support guilty clients and failed to save his girlfriend. Yet he still goes on to protect New York City, unaware of what happened to Elektra.
  • Elektra lost her mother as a child, saw her father murdered in front of her, wrongfully assaulted her boyfriend and, when she tries to get revenge, is humiliated and is given a "Take That!" Kiss when Bullseye kills her. Her spin-off never lets her get the retribution she deserves.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some Jennifer Garner fans only went to the cinema to see Sydney Bristow in a superhero movie.
• Love to Hate: Colin Farrell's portrayal as Bullseye is a murderous, perverted and gleefully destructive Irish Ham... one many enjoy in both the Theatrical and Director's Cuts.
• Memetic Mutation: Quoting "Bring Me to Life" in Daredevil discussions, even if they're not about the movie.
  WAKE ME UP!
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Murdering Matt's father was already low, and framing his former friend and having him killed made it worse, but the Kingpin crosses when he admits to Matt he had Bullseye kill Elektra simply because of his rule to kill off an entire family, or as he puts it: "in the wrong family in the wrong time".
  • Bullseye killing off an old lady and murdering Elektra's father, framing Daredevil in the process, was bad enough, but he crosses it further when he kills Elektra, all the while taking her down with few hits received, mocking her by hitting on her during the fight and kissing her to add insult to injury while gutting her (the latter is in the Director's Cut).
• Narm:
  • A big complaint is that the acrobatics are hard to take seriously due to the obvious special effects, the most cited being Daredevil somehow leaping off the top of a skyscraper, falling several floors, and landing on a window cleaner's platform... somehow not breaking his legs in the process.
  • Most of Jennifer Garner's fight scenes fall into this, especially her practice session against a dozen helpless sandbags. That one of them even has a childish doodle of Daredevil's mask that looks more like Wilson doesn't help.
  • Matt and Elektra happily having a martial arts spar in a park in front of many people. Secret identity issues aside, it sounds more like the scene of a musical than a contextualized scene of a film.
  • Elektra's breathless delivery of "Liar!" like she's in a shampoo commercial.
  • The young Matt fighting back against a bully by lightly slapping his face with his cane.
    "Oh, no, he has a cane! All I can do is just stand here and take it, I guess!"
  • Matt and Elektra's first kiss is set in the rain, the logic being that even though Daredevil is blind, his super hearing lets him "see" everything when it rains thanks to the acoustics of the raindrops bouncing off. The concept is nice, but in the screen, through Matt's "echolocation", Elektra looks like a Na'vi.
  • Not so much when the movie first came out, but nowadays the "Bring Me To Life" scene is likely to induce giggles after the song became extremely overused in fan videos. Plus, the line "All this time I can't believe I couldn't see" syncs up exactly with a shot of Matt's face with his blind eyes in full view.
  • The "Bring Me To Life" scene can be this to modern viewers due to the song's notorious use in numerous FanVids over the years since the movie came out.
• Narm Charm: Many of Bullseye's awkward lines, particularly "He... made me... miss."
• Once Original, Now Common: Compared with other superhero films of its era, this one was capable of making you forget you're watching a comic book adaptation. Some scenes feel like they're from a different film, in the best possible sense. It's only when Bullseye shows up that it starts to slip (it's not easy to make a realistic film involving a man who can go on killing sprees with paper clips and peanuts). But since then, various other films and series had done it - and done it better, including even the Daredevil (2015) Netflix series. And since it still contains a lot of corny elements, Daredevil is unlikely to get credit for merely trying it first.
• Questionable Casting: The Greek Natchios family are played by... All-American Jennifer Garner as Elektra and Indian-American Erick Avari as her father Nicholas. In Erick Avari's case, it leads to many What the Hell Is That Accent? moments. Very jarring, considering Elektra is a second/third generation immigrant, therefore her accent, not to mention her command of the Greek language, should be worse than his.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ellen Pompeo has a brief scene as Karen Page before becoming more well-known for playing Meredith Grey in Grey's Anatomy.
  • Jon Favreau as Foggy Nelson may eventually be slowly and safely forgotten that he was in this film as he will more remembered as Happy Hogan.
• Signature Scene: The aforementioned "Bring Me To Life" training sequence.
• Signature Song: "Bring Me To Life", followed by "My Immortal", both by Evanescence. The film is basically the band's breakthrough platform.
• Special Effect Failure: A brief shot of Elektra jumping from a higher roof to fight Matt was digitally superimposed into the scene. It's badly edited & looks poorly done.
• Strangled by the Red String: Matt and Elektra's romance feels rushed and shallow in the theatrical cut. The director's cut thankfully removed a sex scene from their first night out together so it's more believable.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Kingpin being black is a notable aversion; most feel that, regardless of race, Michael Clarke Duncan turned in such a great performance that it wasn't a problem.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Foggy Nelson was Demoted to Extra in the theatrical version. Averted with the director's cut which has a lot of scenes developing his and Matt's friendship.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Elektra thinking Daredevil killed her father could have been stretched out for longer. She could've gone to Fisk to get his help, working for him in the process along with working with Bullseye, the man who killed her father. Instead, it's resolved within 10 minutes and she gets killed.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Its dark tone and religious undertones can be unnerving for those who prefer typical superhero films.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Ben Affleck took great care to provide a respectful portrayal of a blind person, including wearing blinding contact lenses for all the scenes that didn't require complex physicality from him. All the little things we see him doing to get ready for his regular day at the beginning of the film, such as braille tags on clothing, dollar bills in braille-labeled boxes, folding the bills in different ways to be able to tell the denominations apart, are all Truth in Television.
• Tough Act to Follow: With the death of Michael Clarke Duncan, the producers of the Netflix show likely decided that there was no point trying to find another qualified actor as big as him to be the next version of Wilson Fisk and decided to cast Vincent D'Onofrio in the part. Thankfully, D'Onofrio turned in a performance that, while not as charismatic, was even more layered and complex than the film's version.
• Trailer Joke Decay: "I want a costume" is first heard in the trailer.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Notice all of the Nu Metal and Post-Grunge peppering the film's soundtrack (particularly multiple tracks from Evanescence, whose career was made by the film and whose very presence ties this to the early/mid 2000s)? And all the Hell-Bent for Leather? At the same time, however, a lot of the core plot and stylistic elements were atypical for the time; its Deconstruction of the life of a (mostly) unpowered vigilante with a day job and the predictable outcome of a bloodthirsty, vengeance-obsessed antiheroine with lots of ability, but no actual experience with serious life-or-death street combat barking up the wrong tree on her first night on the job stood in stark contrast to the idealistic bombast, campiness, or hokey faux-gritty action that other superhero movies from that time period showed, and while it definitely dates itself, many of the elements were surprisingly forward-thinking.
• Vindicated by History: Many fans and critics left cold by the theatrical cut were far more receptive to the Director's Cut which reinstated a lot of the classic elements of the comics (Matt's Catholic faith and his legal skills). It now has viewers who consider it a decent film, and the 2008 Blu-Ray release conspicuously lacks the theatrical cut of the film, with the director's cut in its place — and notably, nowhere on the case is it stated that it's the director's cut of the film. As a whole, time has been fairly kind to the film; while certain elements (the gratuitous and unnecessary overuse of nu metal and post-grunge, some of the campier action scenes and dialogue) date it, its relative faithfulness to the source material, deconstruction of what life for a lower-level street hero with a day job and super senses would be like (making no bones about Matt's poor financial circumstances, strained and usually transient relationships with others, continually deteriorating physical condition, and the constant sensory overload that he needs to work around), and generally less bombastic or faux-gritty and more grounded approach are now held to have been way ahead of their time and still hold up surprisingly well.

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