The only actor brave enough to defend Ben Affleck’s ‘Daredevil’ performance: “The suit sucks”
Ben Affleck has made some very bad movies.
There’s the utterly preposterous Pearl Harbour, Michael Bay’s attempt to make the titular tragedy even worse 60 years later. His list of questionable romcoms is long and stomach-churning, stretching from Jersey Girl to the near-career ender Gigli. Of all his duds, though, one continues to haunt him to this day – the highly regrettable Daredevil.
Released in 2003, a good five years before Iron Man came along and gave superhero films a much-needed kick up the backside, Daredevil starred Ben Affleck as blind lawyer-turned-vigilante Matt Murdock. He’s a proper fan-favourite in the comics, so expectations were high – but things went pear-shaped pretty quickly. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson, the film ended up a total mess. The critics slated it, fans weren’t having any of it, and even Affleck later admitted he wasn’t best pleased with how it turned out.
It’s safe to say that the character fared much better in the hands of Charlie Cox. The Englishman donned the red suit for a Netflix series named after the crimefighter, which ran between 2015 and 2018. The response to this outing was much better than the previous one, although Cox could have vomited directly into the critics’ laps and they still would have preferred him to Affleck. He even reprised the role for a new series, Daredevil: Born Again.
Taking on a character with such a messy recent history must’ve been a bit of a tall order for Cox. When The Direct asked if he’d seen the 2003 film, he admitted he only gave it a watch after landing the role. What he said next, though, was bound to ruffle a few feathers.
“To be fair… I think Ben Affleck does a really good Matt Murdock,” he courageously stated. “I don’t love the movie… I feel like the movie tried to do too much and it was a little tonally confused. They had everyone in that movie, they had Kingpin, they had Bullseye, they had Elektra, they had Karen Page, they had Foggy. It was saturated and it’s two hours. So that was part of that problem. And the suit sucks!”
The overstuffing of superhero movies was a common problem in the pre-MCU days. Look at Spider-Man 3, which featured Sandman, Hobgoblin, Venom, and even the spectre of the original Green Goblin, too. Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy got the balance just right, limiting itself to two major villains in each film. In the series, the monstrous mob boss Kingpin takes centre stage, being played by Vincent D’Onofrio. Bullseye, the villain most specifically tied to Daredevil, doesn’t even show up. He was teased, but the show was cancelled before he could make a proper appearance. No word on if they would have brought back Colin Farrell.
The original Daredevil movie was always going to struggle. It was released at a time when superhero movies weren’t taken seriously and had a fraction of the cultural influence they do now. Cox picked up the character at precisely the right time, so it’s nice to hear that he has some love for his unfortunate predecessor. Even if he doesn’t like what he used to wear.
