My own self

You have to admit, as taglines go, that one's pretty good.


I'm amazed. That's what I am.


How can anyone - ANYONE - choose the mediocre nonsense they showed in cinemas above this?! This is GOOD. This is better than good; this, my friends, is very good. I'm not sure if I'll give it a "great", but it's damn sure "very good". My brother - who considers the cinematic version one of his favourite superhero-movies, coming in behind "Batman Begins" and the Spider-mans, if I remember correctly - is SO going to love this, I'm going to have to watch it with him just to enjoy his reaction.

Okay, so, the changes. It's been a while since I last saw the "normal" cut (from now on referred to as "the horribly inferior cut" or simply the HIC), but some changes I noticed/got told of and remembered when watching the commentary.

First of all, there's just MORE, of virtually everything. Most notably, there are the following:

- A much longer getting-to-know-DareDevil-scene where among other things the barfight is heavily extended.
- Longer, and thus more intimate, insights into the relationship between Matt and his father, making one care a helluva lot more for both of them than one did in the HIC.
- Generally longer fight-scenes. I don't think there's one important fight-scene in the entire movie not seriously prolonged. This obviously pulls one more into the battles, and furthermore, it lets these supposedly brilliant fighters impress us a little bit more than they did before.
- More fleshed out friendship between Matt and Foggy - which also, of course, fleshes out both of the individual characters, with great warmth and conviction. Foggy is brilliant in all the cut-scenes he's in.
- Some (but not that many) additions to the scenes presenting the Bullseye-character (one especially cool one near the end) and some more scenes with the brilliantly casted Ben Urich as well. There is also an early extended scene showing the full extent of Kingpin's brutality, lending more potency to his threatening presence later in the movie.

There is also the addition of a subplot where Matt gets to be the lawyer helping the underdog and the blind detective, which ties beautifully in to the main plot and makes some things in the ending make far more sense then they ever did in HIC.

Some very few things are also removed, notably the confessional-scene (replaced with an equally good scene were Matt elects NOT to go to confession, even at the direct urging of his priest), which I miss, and the scene were he gets to bed Elektra, which I miss, although for different reasons.

These changes both add to the new subtextual point of the movie, though - that Matt is alone, very alone, and troubled, and I like them. The main-focus being on the romance with Elektra is gone, shifted to DareDevil's crusade against the Kingpin, without detracting from the potency of his relationship with Elektra - maybe strengthening it, even.

All in all, I have but one major complaint, and that is how they exploited their now-higher-rated-movie-anyway to have Bullseye go "I want a fucking costume" instead of "I want a bloody costume", which to me sounds ten times better. But then again, I'm a sucker for British swearing, so... it might just be me.

Everybody who likes DareDevil (who thematically (but not character-wise) is Marvel's version of Batman, if you ask me, which should be argument enough to like him) should go get hold of this movie and watch it. Trust me. It's waaaaay better than the HIC.

8/10, maybe even an 8,5, I need to contemplate this. I'm not positive, it's been too long since watching it, but I think I'd give the cinematic version 5,5 or 6.