We finally got our hands on Daredevil! Marvel teamed up with Netflix to bring us a selection of new shows and Daredevil is what starts us off. For those who don’t know, Daredevil, aka Matthew Murdoc, is a street level superhero by night and a lawyer by day. He’s blind but his other senses are at such a high level that he understands a hell of a lot more about his surroundings than we ever could. The show starts at the beginning of Murdoc’s career as a lawyer and as Daredevil. He and his partner Foggy Nelson are just setting up shop, hoping to grab their first case, and there isn’t even a hint of red in Daredevil’s costume.
The cast in this show is strong. I couldn’t point to one as a weak link in the chain.
Starting with the main guy himself, Matthew Murdoc is played by Charlie Cox. I really like him as Daredevil. He gave Matt a serious nature yet the humour didn’t seem out of place and in fact made the relationship between him and his best friend believable. Both he and Elden Henson, who plays Foggy Nelson, did a good job at making me believe in their friendship and it even felt upsetting when one becomes justifiably angry at the other. No! You’re best buds, stop shouting!
I’m glad they gave Matt Murdoc time in the courtroom, allowing us to see that he is a good lawyer and so has this legal way to help fight crime. Once he’s beaten the bad guys and handed them over to the police his job still isn’t done.
Charlie Cox wasn’t the only one to play Matthew Murdoc. Skylar Gaertner played Matt as a kid in flashbacks. These flashbacks gave us the backstory to Matt and what influenced and shaped him into who he became. These scenes never felt like they were taking time away from the main story and while it can be hard to find a good child actor I think they managed to find one in Skylar.
Matt wasn’t the only one to get flashbacks. The Kingpin himself, Wilson Fisk, was given scenes of when he too was a kid. Cole Jensen played Fisk as a kid and he was another good find by the show. These scenes of young Fisk were quite interesting. We got to see his influences and what events shaped him as an adult but mostly it made me sympathise with him. This is quite the thing as you know he is a terrible man using the law and violence to achieve his goals. He is the bad guy but the show made me feel for him.
As an adult he is played by Vincent D’Onofrio and this cruel way of making me feel for this criminal continues. I always felt that Fisk was in some way holding himself back. When receiving news of his business affairs I felt that he held back anger and that at any moment he could go crazy and be the only one leaving the room afterwards. He was intimidating. Yet during the show he begins a relationship with a woman named Vanessa, played by Ayelet Zurer. At first I felt that it was like a lion looking after a rabbit, he holds himself back, hiding his violent nature from this woman. Then I started to think differently, that what he held back from her was also his humanity, his vulnerability. For me, this made their love story believable. That Vanessa could see that vulnerability and those emotions and that’s what she loved. There was a scene that showed Fisk letting this woman into his life and allowing her past his defenses and I actually found it touching. I thought what the show did in making their clearly evil guy someone you could feel for or sympathise with was really well done.
The last main thing that I would like to mention about the show is the fight scenes. They’re good. Really good. And one scene in particular has stayed with me even after I’ve seen all thirteen episodes. There’s a fight scene at the end of episode two and it is fantastic. The fights in the show are very realistic, the bad guys get back up and you can see how tiring it is. This particular scene not only showcases this but also must have been planned and rehearsed more than any other scene they had to do. Well done to those who worked on it.
If you haven’t seen it yet I most definitely recommend it. You don’t even need to know about Daredevil beforehand. All the episodes are on Netflix already (because they know we’re all binge watchers) so give it a go. I’m certainly looking forward to the next Marvel/Netflix series.
Nerd Narration 