lolgaxe wrote:
Yeah, that's how I feel about it. Daredevil was a horrible movie, but Affleck was hardly to blame for it. I thought he made for a passable Matt Murdock.
Gonna second (third/fourth?) this. I actually thought he did a very good job with the character. He more or less nailed the character and mannerisms of Matt Murdock. Also the interaction between him and Foggy was great. Unfortunately the rest of the film was loaded up with poor scenes, inconsistent cinematography, a weak plot, and questionable character performances. I agree that the playground scene was not only silly (why would he risk exposing himself and his abilities to some random person he just met in such a public place?), but also more or less stepped on any "reveal" they could have had later. It would have been a much more powerful scene between him and Elecktra if neither of them knew that the other was some kind of master fighter ahead of time. I really suspect that someone with pull in the production just had a hard-on for the scene and insisted on it even when it made no sense, broke the pace of the film badly, and served no actual purpose to the plot at all.
Speaking of, the treatment of the Elektra character was just wrong all the way around. Same deal with the Kingpin. I think they could have pulled both off and even with the actors they chose, but the writing was just awful. It didn't help at all that the plot holding the whole thing together was weak as hell though. Even good actors can only do so much with the material they're given. I can only imagine there was a whole bunch of "Wait? So why is my character doing this again?" going on during shooting of that film.
And yeah. The directors cut is much better. It goes into more detail about Murdock's past and relationship to Kingpin. It provides more details about the reasons behind the fallout between Kingpin and Natchios (which, you know, is somewhat critical to the whole plot). And it much better explains how Murdock gets dragged into the whole thing in the first place (IIRC, the theatrical release completely cut out the ongoing case/investigation he was working on which was leading him to the Kingpin).
So... I don't have any issues with Affleck in terms of his ability to do the role of Batman. As several people have pointed out, it's going to depend far more on the writing in plot of the film itself. Unfortunately, we have seen some real stinkers in the Batman franchise. I'm kinda with Joph on this one. I can enjoy a semi-mindless action flick if it's clearly set out to be a semi-mindless action flick. But if you try to put in more complex elements and drama and whatnot, you really need to put enough effort and skill in place to do it right. It does seem as though some film makers think "we've got to have drama and plot twists", but instead of actually building their story around those things, they just kinda tuck them in around the edges to give the impression of having them. Which I think comes off *worse*.
Edited, Aug 27th 2013 5:54pm by gbaji