Nostalgic cinephiles have recently been claiming that television as a medium has become superior to cinema. Television shows, regardless of Sturgeon's Law and a higher likelihood of misses than hits, are generally better in terms of form and content than what audiences expect on the big screen. There are numerous examples, but rarely as obvious as in the case of Daredevil, one of the comic book heroes from the Marvel Universe. Although he first appeared in the 1989 TV film The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, his first “proper” screen incarnation was the feature film Daredevil starring Ben Affleck. Inevitably, comparisons with the new TV series, whose first season was streamed in 2015 and starred Charlie Cox in the lead role, are almost unanimously in favour of the latter.
The series is the first one produced by Netflix as a sort of spin-off to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This can be observed thanks to The Avengers and its climactic finale – the Battle of New York – being referenced throughout the series. The city suffered heavily, and particularly problematic was the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood, from which the series' protagonist, lawyer Matt Murdock, hails. Neither he nor his neighbours have had an easy life—he was blinded as a child in a bizarre accident, and his father, a professional boxer, was killed by gangsters for refusing to throw a fixed match. Murdock, on the other hand, developed other talents alongside his blindness, particularly enhanced hearing, which comes in handy not only in his legal practice but also in his parallel career as a masked vigilante. He and his best friend Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) have just opened a law firm, and their first client is Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), a young woman accused of murder. In their efforts to clear her, they discover that Karen, as a secretary for a construction company tasked with rebuilding the devastated neighbourhood, uncovered financial malfeasance involving the yakuza, triads, Russian mafia, and behind them all, the mysterious crime lord Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio).
Similar to the 2003 film, the first season of the television "Daredevil" is an origin story, explaining the background of Matt Murdock and how he became Daredevil. Thanks to this, viewers have the opportunity to see how much better a medium television is for this task compared to film, which often has to cram content into an ultimately inadequate feature film format. The series creator, Drew Goddard, had 13 hours at his disposal, giving him far more opportunities to thoroughly develop not only the plot but also various characters, who are no longer cheap archetypes or caricatures. The series also stands out for its exceptional realism—details such as unusual costumes or superhuman abilities are largely relegated to the background, making it closer to a "pure" crime drama than science fiction. And it avoids clichés, portraying gangsterism and other evils as just one form of social pathology in modern metropolises, and how, thanks to pervasive "octopus-like" corruption, they lean on "established" circles from the worlds of business and politics. Because of all this, Daredevil gives the impression that its creators took The Wire as their inspiration rather than superhero films.
One of the series' main strengths is its outstanding cast. Charlie Cox, known to audiences primarily for roles as charming rogues (including the unlucky Irish militant in Boardwalk Empire), is very good in the demanding role of a fairly complex protagonist. Murdock in his performance is a character who, in addition to his own childhood traumas, is tormented by the fact that he has to lie to his closest friends about his secret career as a vigilante, and by the paradox that as a nighttime vigilante he obviously breaks the law, but due to his strict Catholic upbringing, he simultaneously tries not to cross the line that would result in taking the lives of his opponents. Cox is impressive in action scenes, although some of them are a bit too repetitive (though one pays homage to the famous showdown in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy). The rest of the cast is also excellent, particularly D’Onofrio, who has been known to save films whose screenwriters were light-years below the standard of the television version of Daredevil. His Fisk is also light-years away from a caricatured mega-villain; the series, through flashbacks, also shows his origin story, and viewers have the opportunity to see a realistic human being whose actions, however horrific, can be explained, though not justified. Deborah Ann Woll, who would otherwise be just a pretty face, is excellent as a young woman going through hell, and the relatively unknown Henson is also good in a role that would otherwise be "comic relief." If the season's ending weren't wrapped up as usual for this television series, the first season of "Daredevil" would have been very close to perfection.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)
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