Daredevil: Director's Cut (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Mark Steven Johnson (Writer/Director) Featurette-Making Of-Giving The Devil His Due Featurette-Making Of-Beyond Hell's Kitchen Featurette-Jennifer Garner Screen Test Multiple Angles-Multi-Angles Dailies Featurette-Featured Villain: Kingpin Featurette-Daredevil: HBO First Look Special Featurette-Moving Through Space: A Day With Tom Sullivan Theatrical Trailer-2 Teaser Trailer Music Video Music Video-Evanescence: "Bring Me To Life" Gallery-Stills Featurette-Men Without Fear: Creating Daredevil Featurette-Shadow World Tour Notes-Modeling Sheets Easter Egg
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	127:41
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mark Steven Johnson
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Ben Affleck Jennifer Garner Colin Farrell Michael Clarke Duncan Jon Favreau Scott Terra Ellen Pompeo Joe Pantoliano Leland Orser Lennie Loftin Erick Avari Derrick O'Connor Paul Ben-Victor
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Alex Band Carl Bell Stevie Benton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    To understand a few things about this review, you’re going to have to bear with me a little while I announce my biases. You see, since my early teens, I have been a big fan of comics. I used to read X-Men and all the various spin-offs that were available back in the late-80s and early-90s. I was and continue to be a big fan of the Batman comics.

    As I grew up, I discovered just how important it was to have a good writer in order for a comic to be all that it can be. Names began to mean a lot to me in terms of quality story-telling. For Batman it was, of course, comics legend Frank Miller, who took Bruce Wayne on a journey of self-discovery and self destruction leading to the heart of vigilante violence that had hitherto been completely missing from comics.

    Another of Frank Miller’s genius writing sprees was of course Marvel Comics’ Daredevil. What was special about Daredevil was that, unlike most other superheroes, he was just a man. Worse yet, he was a man with a disability. A man with a lot of pain and self hatred. A divided man who punished law breakers in court during the day, and punished them himself when the system failed them. For many years, Frank Miller’s Daredevil stood as the epitome of the character.

    During the revitalisation of Marvel Comics during the turn of the millennium, three significant writers were brought into the Marvel fold. These were Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis and Brian Michael Bendis. In three years, Morrison would completely change the face of the X-Men series forever, setting a whole new benchmark of storytelling with his inventive dark humour and cinematic storytelling. Ennis, flush from the success of his groundbreaking (and some would say highly offensive) epic Preacher for the DC Vertigo imprint would resurrect and renew Marvel legend Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, into one of the most violent and funny series the Marvel world has ever seen (if you are a comics fan and have not yet read any of Ennis’s Punisher MAX adult only comics, then you are seriously missing out).

    But of the three, Bendis was given the toughest job of the lot: breathe new life into two of the best loved Marvel series ever – Spiderman and Daredevil. While I am still not sold on Bendis’s Ultimate Spiderman, this has a lot to do with the fact that I do not find the character of Spiderman overly interesting. Bendis’s re-imagining of Daredevil, on the other hand, is an example of how comics transcend stupid books for teenagers and can bring truly adult storytelling and breathtaking art to create something people have never seen before.

    Now, with this bias behind me, I approached the recent spate of Marvel Comics adaptations for the big screen with a little enthusiasm, but also a lot of scepticism. Previous big screen and small screen renditions of these characters had, on the whole, been pretty cheap and, well ... crap. The (comparatively) big budget X-Men changed all of that, and set in motion a more successful series of Marvel Comics adaptations, including the awesome X2 and the stunning Spiderman 2. Unfortunately, what various writers and directors were able to do with X-Men and Spiderman they were completely unable to do with Daredevil or The Punisher.

    So we turn to the subject of this movie, Mark Stephen Johnson’s cinematic adaptation of Daredevil, featuring (of all people) Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock, a.k.a. the Daredevil, and Jennifer Garner as Elektra Natchios (who would, in good time, have her own spin-off Elektra movie). Now let’s face it people, the original cut of this film sucked. Colin Farrell’s rendition of Bullseye was an awesome spectacle in its complete and utter awfulness, and Michael Clarke Duncan’s portrayal of Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. The Kingpin, was likewise ludicrously bad. Plus, the original cut did not make any sense due to some rather injudicious butchering at the editing room in order to make a more ‘action-packed’ cinematic release. So, is the Director’s Cut any better? In a word, yes, but this is still ultimately a two-and-a-half star movie.

    So, what’s different? There are a couple of important subplots that are restored here, including the murder of a woman and the trial of a homeless drunk accused of her murder. There is also more of a focus on Matt at the expense of the relationship between himself and Elektra (yes, this is technically a ‘cut’ in many respects), however this actually works for the film rather than detracts from it. But despite these changes, the character of Matt Murdock is never faithfully represented. While his loneliness is somewhat grasped, his sense of loss and disproportionate sense of justice (a product of his own self loathing and need to punish others as a means of simultaneously punishing himself) is still missing.

    If you want to watch a version of Daredevil, then this is the one to watch. It’s longer, sure, but it’s better. Sadly, it’s still no match for the artists it is trying desperately to imitate – Frank Miller and Brian Michael Bendis. At the end of the day, in trying to derive as much as it could from the comic series, Mark Stephen Johnson became overly influenced, confused, and lost his own creative direction. Until someone finds it for him again, Daredevil may remain the last unremarkable adaptation of what is one of the finest comics of the last twenty years.

Video

    Transferred in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced, this picture looks pretty good on a regular wide screen CRT. Blow it up on a nice big 80” wide screen, and the faults of the original master begin to be apparent.

    Let’s start with the good before we go to the bad and the ugly. Colour is on the whole quite nice and well rendered. With the projector turned up on to a warm colour setting, we get a very rich and lifelike image. There is still some noticeable background aliasing where the DVD cannot generate a detailed enough backdrop to certain sequences. Most of the time you will not notice this, but every now and then it will stick out at you.

    Close up detail is also very good, with great reproduction of wrinkles, stubble and sweat. And shadow detail has, for the most part, been well rendered, although some of the blacks can be a little blue-inky at times.

    The CGI action sequences, on the other hand, just look like ... a bad CGI videogame. No, really, I felt like I was watching a PS1 rendition of the film in several scenes there – in particular, where Daredevil kicks Bullseye off his bike, and also that climb up the giant organ in the cathedral. What you can kind of hide on a smaller CRT looks plainly, obviously cheap on a bigger screen. If you have a 40-inch LCD or plasma or larger, you’ll see what I mean. These are, of course, source faults, and no real fault of the transfer.

    Aside from that, this transfer is perfect in just about every respect. There are no MPEG artefacts, minimal aliasing (a good upscaling system should compensate for any aliasing that is present) and no moire. There is a slight loss in background detail, particularly in fast panning shots. But not to the extent that the image disintegrates.

    The dual-layer pause is well hidden, wherever it’s at. I saw a vague pause around the 70:00 mark, but can’t seem to determine whether that was the pause or not. If someone can find the precise location can they leave a note below for me. At this point, let's just say it's well hidden.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is available in the original English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround (448Kb/s) and also in English 5.1 DTS (768Kb/s). After a comparison of some of the more explosive sequences, I am certain that: (a) this soundtrack is identical to the one for the first release, just with the added scenes; and (b) the DTS track is by far the better of the two. There is also the English Feature Commentary that was on the original release (although extended out for the restored scenes), which enables vision impaired people to get a blow-by-blow description of what is happening.

    As with the original release, dialogue is well produced, there is an abundance of surround information, and the music and score are faithfully reproduced.

    There are some real pounding bass moments here where the subwoofer is pushed to its limits.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with a 2.0 Dolby Surround audio track.

Disc 1

Audio Commentary – Mark Steven Johnson (writer/director) and Avi Arad (producer)

    Presented in 2.0 Dolby Surround, this is a totally different commentary than that which was done for the first film, and the two really talk about the differences between the two movies, why certain choices were made and so on. Interesting, but they still haven’t quite cottoned on to the fact that this movie does not quite work.

Feature Commentary

    Presented in 2.0 Dolby Surround, this is an audio description of what is happening on the screen for the benefit of visually impaired people. Unfortunately, it means they cannot enjoy the DTS track.

Featurette – “Giving The Devil His Due: The Making Of Daredevil Director’s Cut” (15:26)

    Presented in 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced with a 2.0 Dolby Surround soundtrack, this is a series of interviews with people involved in the making of the film talking about the choices that went into the release of the theatrical edition and the re-release of the director’s cut.

Disc 2

The Film

• Featurette – Beyond Hells Kitchen: Making Daredevil
• Screen Test: Jennifer Garner
• Multi-Angle Dailies
• Featurette – Featured Villain: Kingpin
• Featurette – HBO First Look Special
• Featurette – Moving Through Space: A Day with Tom Sullivan
• Featurette – Featured Villain: Kingpin
• Theatrical Trailers
• Music Videos
• Still Galleries

The Comic

• Featurette – Men Without Fear: Creating Daredevil
• Featurette – Shadow World Tour
• Modelling Sheets

    The R1 release seems to be identical to this R4 release, barring the region coding and the video format. From all the censorship information I have, there seems to be no difference in the censorship area.

    There are some differences between the original release and this later release. Obviously, the film is much longer, however Disc 1 of the Director’s Cut also misses out on the following special features:

• Text Commentary, and
• Enhanced Viewing Mode.

    The loss of these features is a small loss compared to the gains made in the quality of the film in terms of the Director’s Cut. I would not waste my time with the original theatrical release.

    As for R1 vs R4, I say buy whichever is cheapest.

    Daredevil: Director’s Cut is a vast improvement on the original movie, but I still don’t think this works particularly well. All things even, it just doesn’t add up right, and comes across a little trite in the end. Worth a look, but this is not the equal of contemporaries such as X-Men, Spiderman 2 or the new Batman Begins.

    As with the original release, the video is pretty much faultless aside from those terrible CGI sequences.

    Audio is also excellent.

    This is drowning in extras, and oddly enough, some of them are more interesting than the film. Stay away from the promotional stuff, though – life is too short.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall