"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Elektra

ELEKTRA was considered sort of a flop when it came out a year or two ago, and that made the studios think there just isn’t money in female action heroes or female biopics. This may have led to the troubles with the Edie Sedgwick movie, the limited release of the Betty Page movie, etc. However, this very unorthodox and presumably fictionalized biography of Carmen Elektra is not really as bad as I thought it would be.

Jennifer Garner (Felicity) plays Elektra (they never call her Carmen) as a brooding, obsessive compulsive ninja assassin who has recently returned from the dead. (a little exaggerated there, in my opinion.) She imagines herself as a major player in some kind of mystical war between good and evil forces. I think you can interpret it a couple of ways, alot of people probaly take it literally and figure this is like CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, this is telling us that the whole time we thought Carmen Elektra was just some chick on BAYWATCH or SINGLED OUT or whatever, she was actually also a ninja assassin. On this mission she goes to an island somewhere, it is not exactly a beach paradise but still she could be filming some pickups for BAYWATCH or MTV Spring Break while she’s there and then after she’s done with those she’s gonna assassinate some people.

ElektraHowever, I think you could also take this as some poetical type of shit. Because she has this manager, he is actually called a manager and he is a dumbass Hollywood type of dude, and this is the guy who gets her work. So I think that sort of indicates that it is all a metaphor, the murdering with swords and ninja stars is actually symbolic of all of the acting or modelling or strip aerobics or whatever it is she does. This is more like DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY, it is telling the story of her life but it is kind of taking some artistic license so there’s demons and crap.

Of course also there is the issue of rights, like in that movie PERMANENT MIDNIGHT they couldn’t say that Jerry Stahl wrote for ALF while he was high, so they had to make up a fake puppet character. Well, they were not able to show that Prince was Carmen Elektra’s mentor so instead they made up this Prince-like character named Stick, who is played by Terence Stamp (THE LIMEY). Instead of a musician he is a martial arts instructor and instead of being an awesome guitar player he’s blind. He wears some pretty cool martial arts type clothes which, fortunately, cover the ass area completely. But still, it’s obviously Prince.

In the story she is fighting against some ninjas or gangsters or something called The Hand. This is not supposed to be the Pussycat Dolls I don’t think, maybe there were actually some ninjas she fought in real life, I don’t know. These guys have mystical powers, the tattoos of snakes and birds and stuff that they have on their chests can come to life and fly around to chase their prey. There is one guy who’s pretty cool, he’s a huge black dude with skin so strong it breaks Elektra’s sword, I think he might represent Dennis Rodman but I’m not sure. If so then when she drops a tree on him that means divorcing him.

I liked the mystical stuff and some of the fighting, but the overall tone of the movie is very quiet, serious and brooding, maybe a little too much. I appreciate that they take it seriously but it could use a little more badass to make it more fun. The opening (where Carmen is a scary unseen force coming in to murder a guy) is pretty cool, then she goes to stay in a cabin and starts building a relationship with her neighbor and his daughter, and it seems like a serious for-grownups-who-don’t-like-ninjas movie. Then her manager sends her the file of who she has to kill, it’s actually two people: her neighbor and his daughter, who she just had Christmas dinner with.

So obviously she’s gonna be upset – oh shit, this is the little girl, she’s so nice, and she reminds me of myself, what am I gonna do? She looks at it for a minute and then she says, “I’ll call you when it’s done,” and gets out her big ass bow and arrow and goes to murder these people. A nice way to celebrate the Lord’s birthday I guess.

That was a good moment, that was a surprise and that was a movie I wanted to see. At this point in the movie I actually thought wow, is this gonna turn out to be good? But of course, after targeting them and pulling the arrow back she has a change of heart and it goes back to what you originally assumed, the less interesting, more obvious movie where she decides not to kill them. Oh well.

So then she ends up protecting them from some other ninjas. There is some ninjas on the roof and instead of saying “Hey neighbor, watch out for the ninjas on the roof” she comes over and says, “Can I talk to you for a minute? Inside?” And the dude goes inside and while he has his back turned for a second she turns around, jumps up and stabs a sword through the roof right into the ninja. I mean she just knows where to stab – one stab and she hits ninja meat. Take that, ninja! That was some good ninja shit, but I think the problem with the movie is it needs more ninja shit.

Jennifer Garner looks a little bit like Carmen, I can see why they cast her, but they are trying to portray her as this hard-assed ninja bitch, and she isn’t entirely convincing as that. She can fight a little bit from that TV show she did briefly after Felicity, but she’s no Sonny Chiba. There aren’t any really extended fights. Every once in a while there’s a pretty cool move though. I liked when she was in a shrubbery maze and she used ninja sense to guess where her enemy was and then just threw the sword through about ten layers of bushes and hit her target in the head. Good job. Still, there is only one beheading in the movie, and she’s not the one that does it. So it could be better. What kinda ninja movie only has one beheading?

The big problem is we don’t get enough screen time of her as a ninja bitch. We get the opening scene and the part where she almost kills the neighbors, the rest of the time she’s pretty nice. When she has no morals she’s an interesting anti-hero, the rest of the time she’s more what you’d expect. At the end of the movie I guess she’s not an assassin anymore, so if she was a real person we’d feel proud of her but since she’s not, she’s a movie character, it’s kind of a bummer. I don’t think we ever did get to see her kill anybody with that bow and arrow. And now she’s retired.

See, we Americans got this problem where we sometimes try to do martial arts movies, but starring people who aren’t martial artists. If you saw GYMKATA like I did recently, you know what I’m talking about. Yuen Woo Ping has figured out how to train some of these people pretty good, they made it work in THE MATRIX and KILL BILL. But this is not on that level. If they had this same story but it was stringing together a bunch of amazing knock you on your ass and then you get up again and then before you can brush the dirt off your ass it knocks you on your ass again martial arts sequences, then I think we would’ve had something here. But when it only has the story to lean on it’s not much.

At the same time it’s not terrible, nothing was really unintentionally funny in it. And it did make me feel bad for Carmen Elektra, I didn’t realize she was going through all that. So, nice try. It’s an interesting idea.

UPDATE: Well, I feel stupid. It turns out this movie has nothing to do with Carmen Elektra, it is actually a spinoff of the movie DAREDEVIL. I thought I dreamed that movie but I looked it up and sure enough it exists, it is this crazy movie where Ben Affleck is a blind dude in a red gimp outfit that makes him look kind of chubby, and then the bad guy is Colin Farrell, whose super power is he can flick peanuts and paperclips really good. With that in mind ELEKTRA is actually a fuckin miracle, because its problem is it’s not very good, while DAREDEVIL is aggressively bad.

anyway I regret the error, sorry everybody

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 11th, 2007 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

82 Responses to “Elektra”

  1. Tip-toeing very slowly out on a shaky, fragile limb here…..DAREDEVIL…..The Directors Cut….. is kinda……sorta….. not….too….bad??? Phew, I said it.

    It’s no undiscovered gem, but it isn’t the piece of shit I remember the Theatrical Version being. It’s been 11 years since I saw that version, so I can’t remember what was and wasn’t in it. But this DC I think I can get behind as a gritty second tier super hero film. There seems to be more brutality in some of the fight scenes. Daredevil beats the shit out of one guy in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment and speaks to him in a low gravelly voice that sounds eerily like Christian Bale in BATMAN BEGINS. And this was 2 years before BB.

    Colin Farrell as Bullseye still comes off like a cross between Romper Stomper and Mongo from Blazing Saddles, but Kingpin is a pretty great villain with his seismic presence. Jon Favreau has a good supporting role in this, and clearly learned from this ones flaws when he made IRON MAN.

    Yeah, I’m gonna be watching this one again. Maybe not for a few years, but I think there’s something here. Gonna need more persuasion to attempt an ELEKTRA re-watch though. Might be a tough sell.

  2. Don’T worry, man, it’s a well accepted fact that the DAREDEVIL DC is superior to the theatrical version and is even considered by many as actually very good (but still heavily flawed) movie.

  3. And the Ben Affleck rehabilitation has begun…

  4. The Original... Paul

    May 14th, 2014 at 3:02 pm

    I don’t think “Daredevil” was ever an “unmitigated piece of shit”. Yeah, it was preposterous, and suffered from some really bad writing and painfully obvious wire work (look at the fight at the end where MCD “throws” Daredevil at the wall. It doesn’t even look like he’s getting any leverage.) Affleck was fine, Farrell was a lot of fun, and I do give them a lot of credit for killing off the female lead two thirds of the way through. That was a shocker to me back then.

  5. The Original... Paul

    May 14th, 2014 at 3:08 pm

    And for the record, although I don’t think “Daredevil” was a better movie than the latest “Captain America” movie (it sure as heck beats “The First Avenger” though), I enjoyed it more than any of the Captain America movies I’ve seen so far (that includes the one where Cap is a serial car thief, the one where he’s a suicidal maniac, the one where he’s a moralising douchebag, and the one where he easily gets outshone the whole through by Scarlett Johansson doing a comedy Russian accent).

  6. The Director’s Cut of DAREDEVIL is better in may ways, but it has problems of its own, particularly structural and pacing issues; doesn’t the opening prologue last a whole half-hour?!? And while there are a lot of changes, it does carry over most of the worst stuff from the theatrical cut. That said, while I may never watch it again I’m pretty fond of DAREDEVIL now in the same way I may be fond of an old, particularly tacky novelty hit single (it may help that I’m not a comic reader). DAREDEVIL is a ridiculous Hollywood movie circa 2003, and nothing quite like it will ever be made again. Today’s equivalent is (I’m assuming) AGE OF EXTINCTION, and I’m sure it will seem equally amusing once that stuff is all over.

  7. pegsman – personally I don´t have an “Affl-e-ction” . No treatment needed here.

  8. Me neither, Shoot. But we know that they’re out there…

  9. It’s been interesting watching Affleck’s career evolve over the years. I haven’t liked him in a lot of things (Reindeer Games, Gigli, Pearl Harbor), though that’s somewhat indicative of the quality of those films, but I liked him in the Kevin Smith ones and Good Will Hunting. He’s got classic old-Hollywood looks, more Montgomery Clift than Robert Mitchum. Hasn’t pulled off a convincing bad-ass role. But I don’t think he should try. Not his greatest strength.

    My favourite of his directorial films is GONE BABY GONE, but I haven’t seen his first short film I KILLED MY LESBIAN WIFE, HUNG HER ON A MEATHOOK, AND NOW I HAVE A THREE PICTURE DEAL AT DISNEY. That may usurp all his feature length efforts on title alone.

  10. I agree, Darren. GONE, BABY, GONE. Is fantastic. It is also the only Kenzie/Gennaro book I´ve never read. But it seems like the perfect one for a movie-adaptation with it´s strong emotional core. The Bubba in the movie didn´t exactly fit my image of him from the books. The psychotic sidekick, which is an enjoyable trope of american crime novels is considerably downplayed here. It doesn´t matter, since the rest of the movie is fucking great.

  11. I’ve only read one of Lehane’s Kenzie & Gennaro novels, Darkness Take my Hand. I’m not much of a fiction novel reader, but I finished the entire thing in a week. I gotta read more of his stuff. In fact, I gotta read more, period. I can feel a Sabbatical from movies coming on. I’ll start it right after GODZILLA. And DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. And EDGE OF TOMORROW. And MALEFICENT. Oh, and BIG BAD WOLVES hits bluray next week. Then there’s that retro screening of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE at my local. Then right after SABOTAGE comes out on bluray in July, I should be ready for that Sabbatical. Ah fuck, then the stores start releasing the old and new horrors in time for Halloween. Fuck it, I got no chance.

  12. The Kenzie & Gennaro series is one of my absolute favorites. It’s so dark yet has such a strong emotional core. It makes the stories so much more suspenseful when you know how devastating it would be if anything happened to these people. I saw GONE BABY GONE before I started the series, so I forgot how it played out before I got to that book. I don’t remember if it ended the same way, but man, what a sad way to leave that relationship. I’m kind of nervous about starting the next one in the series. I’m a bit too invested.

  13. If you guys aren’t watching the Netflix DAREDEVIL series, I just want to point out that the second episode ends with the fight scene of the year so far. Contained within a “single” unbroken five-and-a-half-minute-long take, it’s most likely got some subtle shot splices (and at least two old school Texas switches, always a delight) so it’s not THE PROTECTOR but it’s way better filmed and choreographed than any fight scene I’ve seen in an American theatrical film in ages. It’s an incredible, brutal hallway fight between Daredevil (not in costume yet) and five or six guys who just won’t stay down. The camera stays in a RAID-inspired greenish hallway, mostly at a respectful distance, occasionally swooping around them to get the opposite angle, as they knock each other in and out of an adjacent room. DD beats them all down, they lumber to their feet again, and they do it all over again, more exhausted with every go-round, until finally our hero is the last man standing. It’s fucking grueling and its fucking great. You guys know I am not an easy mark for the hip new televisions of today but this show is awesome so far. Highly recommended for people who like seeing dudes get hit in the face.

  14. Thanks for the heads-up. I watched only episode 1 so far, but only kinda liked it and decided to watch the rest of the season later. Not this weekend, probably not even this month. But it seems like the show just moved up on my watchlist for at least one more episode.

  15. I liked-not-loved the first episode, too, but the second one really won me over. In addition to that balls-out final fight (which is not even a boss battle or anything, just your basic goon brawl some striving-for-excellence motherfucker decided to elevate to action poetry), they also get a better handle on Foggy (who was the major disappointment in the pilot), let Deborah Ann Woll smile for a change, and introduce Rosario Dawson, who’s a welcome addition to just about anything. Plus there’s a killer fire extinguisher gag. This is top-shelf badass entertainment. I hope they do a Punisher show soon.

  16. I plan on binge watching it sometime this weekend. Between this and THE FLASH coming back on Tuesday it’s gonna be a pretty good few days for live action superhero fare in my estimation.

  17. Thanks for the heads up. DAREDEVIL is actually available on Shitflix over here. I am gonna check it out.

  18. I stand corrected. This interview with the stunt coordinator (http://observer.com/2015/04/daredevil-stunt-coordinator-on-designing-a-one-shot-fight-scene-for-a-blind-hero/) claims that the hallway fight was done shot all in one take without any splices. He does confirm the Texas switches, though, which is awesome. I love Texas switches.

  19. Yeah, this show is extremely good. I feel like those here who hate the Marvel stuff will probably like it.

  20. I feel like it’s the best of Marvel and DC. I read some reviews that compared it to BATMAN BEGINS, and I was like, yeah, except when it’s time for an awesome ninja fight, they show an awesome ninja fight.

  21. I mean “the best parts of Marvel and DC.” Like, a combination of what they both do best.

  22. I don’t know now Daredevil has a lot to live up to. Keep in mind that he’s also my favorite Marvel character and after the tragic double dose of Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil theatrical and the highly reccomended and still equally asstastic director’s cut I’m really rooting that this is it. However Green Arrow is also one of my favorite comic book characters of all time and I absolutely loathe ARROW.

    With that said I feel that THE FLASH (ironically and ARROW spin-off) feels like “the best of Marvel and DC”. It really embraces it’s comic book roots and I absolutely adore that because it does in such an unapologetic way and it never seems disingenuous. It’s a show that loves that it could have mega acting (in the form of two PRISON BREAK veterans and Mark Hammill) as well as heartfelt drama (ie: John Wesley Shipp and Jesse L. Martin’s scenes with Grant Gustin) and genuine menace of Reverse Flash and Gorilla FUCKING Grodd (yes you read that right; Grodd in live action) co-existing with no pretenses unlike a Nolan movie.

    Actually superhero movies could learn a lot about The Flash it’s a comic book property in love with being a comic book property. They embrace all the eccentrities and nuances of his power set and altruistic heroism as well as the sci-fi madness that is inherent to Flash stories and it’s much more stronger for that. As opposed to Arrow which often betrays the tone and spirit of Green Arrow in order to become Batman Lite for Joe and Jane Casual. It sells itself out while Flash keeps that underground flavor and ironically that’s what’s helped it become easily the most popular CW show after only one season.

  23. It also appropriately enough (since it’s a show about a speedster) has a very quick and steady pace which keeps things flowing beautifully and also keeps everything fresh. Every week really drops new revelations and twists that are there organically and it keeps me coming back for more. It has done things in one season that many other shows take 3 to 4 seasons to get to in terms of progress in it’s story structure.

  24. I would say that DAREDEVIL embraces its comic book roots. It’s just that it’s a very different kind of comic book. As I’m sure you know, DD is basically the poster child for dark and gritty comics, but it’s still about a blind guy with superpowers who’s also a lawyer who’s also a Catholic who’s also a boxer who’s also a ninja involved in an ancient mystical war who’s also a cocky stud banging hot chicks all the time. So it’s not going for some kind of bullshit realism like someone with no understanding of the material would default to. It never forgets that you’re here to watch a badass motherfucker do badass shit and look good doing it.

    The highest compliment I can give it is that I believe in the humanity all of these characters and the reality of their world, and yet when Nuke inevitably shows up in Season 3, he’s not gonna feel out of place.

  25. I know that DD is supposed to be grimdark I’m expecting that. I grew up on that book (shout out to Ann Nocenti and Frank Miller). Like I said he’s always been my favorite Marvel. That’s the one thing I actually hope for it (gonna start watching it in a few).

    My hope is that it embraces the tone and spirit of the Daredevil comic book. Which is something the movie and it’s oddly often recommending but just as disgusting director’s cut really insulted me. They tried to get the details right but that’s not where the execution works. It’s in maintaining the tone and spirit of the character first and foremost not recreating panels from his most famous stories.

    That’s where THE FLASH really works. It’s very easily recognizable to anybody familiar with Flash comics but still keeps things fresh by telling the story in it’s own way. I was just saying that THE FLASH really embraces being fun, wacky and light hearted while still genuinely heartfelt and filled with awesome sci-fi. It’s like the best TREK show but with super powers. If DD is in the group of TV shows that also manages to succeed in that regard then it proves my longstanding series that just like with comic books a serialized format would work best for live action superheroes.

    As opposed to crammed superhero movies that aim to be jacks of all trades and end up mastering none partly due to rushed pathos and severe underdevelopment by proxy.

  26. Meant to type *oddly often recommenDED and *longstanding theory

    Sorry. Haven’t slept in over 24 hours.

  27. I think you’ll like it, Broddie. DAREDEVIL was always my favorite Marvel character and there’s absolutely nothing in the show that’s not 100% true to the spirit of the books.

  28. By proxy ARROW really doesn’t work for me because it does the opposite. As a fan of Green Arrow I do not recognize the character I see on the screen when I watch that show at all. Even by the standards of GA starting out as a Batman ripoff it’s in it’s 3rd season and you’d figure by now just like the comic book version did he’d start distinguishing himself a lot more as an individual and not just a Batman cosplayer.

  29. Also I haven’t watched a Marvel Studios movie in years (since AVENGERS) and have no interest in any future movies. With that said this format I’m definitely down with. Please please please give The Punisher, Ghost Rider and Blade this treatment as well. Doctor Strange should’ve gone this route also but too late…

  30. I second the DAREDEVIL love. I mean I watch AGENTS OF SHIELD and enjoyed AGENT CARTER earlier this year, I was looking forward to this but…goddamn, I can’t believe Marvel TV put this out and its this good. I know there were rumors that Marvel was pissed by how ABC suits gave them endless notes on AOS, thus when AC got greenlighted, Marvel was more hands on (and coincidentally a much better show than AOS) and indeed these Netflix shows they’re running the show as well. Man if JESSICA JONES and LUKE CAGE and IRON FIST are as good as DD is….they might actually take away the one thing that WB/DC could take pride in, which was supposedly “owning” TV.

    I wonder: will DD be seen in retrospect a gamechanger of this superhero spectrum like TDK and THE AVENGERS or whatever were? Will WB/DC decide to finally use that cable outlet Time-Warner owns called you know HBO to do something similar?

    Seriously I don’t know how I can watch ARROW after DD, and see your usual stunts/action scenes which for TV are good and thus are tolerated generally. Why tolerate several filler/wheels-spinning episodes because the network demand 22 episode seasons instead of 13 little-fat episodes?* Hell even AOS, going back to watch that tuesday will be like trading a color TV for a black & white TV.

    DD did remind me of something a fan told me long ago, that he argued DD was Marvel’s Rocky Balboa: The more beatings he takes and more times he picks himself up, the more you love him.

    Mr. Majestyk – I don’t understand people complaining about Nelson. He has great chemistry with the other leads. I mean he has a great scene in episode 5. I like Devin Faraci complaining about Nelson, how he’s a “beta-male” on the show. Umm yeah, that sounds like Foggy Nelson unless I missed something. I know people like to repeat cliches about this and that superhero as being an every man, but in the DD world I always thought Nelson was a stand-in for us, the audience who aren’t beautiful or badasses or rich or have swagger as fantasy wish-fulfillment archetypes tend to be in these sort o stories…yet he keeps on fighting the good fight. DD kicking ass is one thing, but when Nelson takes on thugs its more powerful.

    Broddie – here’s one reason you should check out DD: we get a ninja set on fire who keeps on martial arts fighting (and Cox’s stunt double fighting him too!) as he becomes a human hotdog.

    *=Though THE FLASH so far has a great job of avoiding that trap. GOTHAM on the other hand, I lost count of episodes where Penguin (the show’s MVP) is seen at a bar doing nothing.

  31. Also Scott Glenn’s Stick I figured would be awesome AND HE WAS! Shit, Avengers should just hire him to take out Hydra. He’ll be done by wednesday. Tuesday if the beer is good.

  32. RRA: Foggy made a bad first impression on me, that’s all. By the second episode, when he was dragging Deborah Ann Woll (Or DAW, which is the sound I make every time I look at her) to Josie’s bar and drinking eel juice, he started to grow on me. He felt a little Josh Gad in the first episode. He was breaking Gad, but then they course-corrected and now I like the energy he brings to the table. Count me Team Foggy.

    And Scott Glenn was perfect casting. I had no idea who was playing that part when the episode started, and when he showed up, I couldn’t imagine anyone better. Like, in the world. In the history of the world, even. This was the part Scott Glenn was born to play.

  33. You know I realized something, that was alluded somewhat to in pre-release hype: The Avengers are the real (unseen) villains of this show. I mean the show even says outright (if without spending too much time on it) that the alien invasion in AVENGERS destroyed Hell’s Kitchen and its the reconstruction with the crooked contracts is how Wilson Fisk rises to power. While the Avengers are off traveling the world saving it, their own backyard is going to shit and they either don’t care or don’t know about this trickling-down (unintended) effects of their actions. Notice how aside for a reference or two over the course of 13 episodes, they’re not talked about. Hell the good guys never consider trying to get help from them, not even Murdock in his superhero guise. So yeah, Daredevil despite no money or gadgets or SHIELD or whatever he has to save the day. Which he does!

    I mean next year we get BATMAN VS SUPERMAN and CIVIL WAR movies, both which supposedly will play with the idea of superheroes being the real bad guys (or treated as such) or whatever. But we know both ultimately will still argue half-assed copout that we still need heroes because blah blah. Here in DAREDEVIL, they’re damned even if its not explicitely stated or hammered home. Most won’t care or think twice about it, but I’m impressed we got this in a superhero TV show, much less from the MCU.

    Anyway back to Stick: its funny how much amusement I got from that Stick episode (plus IRON MAN 3) where the adult calls a kid a “pussy.”

    Hell, I never thought I would live to hear “Suck my dick!” in the MCU. And I agree with you Mr. M….they can absolutely pull off a good bloody Punisher program. Since he’ll have the MCU backdrop to actually work with this time (when the character is at his best IMO), you’ll have him and DD bitch and fight each other over “kill or not kill.”

    I was reading sometime back some issues form the Bario run of the Punisher (which was the run that was published when I was a kid) and there was an issue where he rescued a black kid, who called Castle a racist. Castle pulls the ole “Some of my best friends are…” defense, and the kid says name them. And Punisher stumbles. Hilarious. I mean I love ole Frank and his red meat adventures, but I hope they do some fun with his heroic-stand-in-for-white-male-racist-right-wingers.

  34. Besides Punisher, what other shows could Marvel Knights* adapt? People keep bringing up Moon Knight, but I’ll be honest: I completely missed him growing up, so Broddie can you shed some light on why I should (well if I should) think that’s a promising idea?

    I wonder if they’ll do a whole new phase set around the Supernatural? Blade, Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider…though honestly, instead of Blade I would prefer it be called TOMB OF DRACULA but they’ll do Blade just because its a recognized name.

    *=Officially that’s what the whole Netflix/Marvel enterprise is being called, at least according to a convention for merchandising companies.

  35. I’d love one based around the supernatural characters. It’d be a bit risky, but it could be a lot of fun. (What if they structured it like TALES FROM THE CRYPT and gave it sort of an EC vibe, where you see various petty criminals and other jerks with larceny in their hearts run afoul of some of the MCU’s spookier residents?)

    If they actually decided to base something around Howard the Duck, a TV format is more appropriate than a movie. The main part of the character’s appeal is getting to know him and then seeing how he reacts to the lunacy of the Marvel Universe. It’d work better if he had a chance to be developed over time.

  36. SofS – what about She-Hulk: Attorney at Law?

  37. It seemed to me that the events from THE AVENGERS-movie actually contributed to rise of organized crime in DAREDEVIL, or am I wrong. Bob Gunton had a line in which he said that they profited from heroes destroying buildings or what was it? If that is so, that is kinda cool way to make Daredevil part of the larger Marvel cinematic universe. Because the Daredevil Universe is such a gritty place in which space robots would seem unlikely to fit in. However, I think it works.

  38. Foggy is quite obnoxious in the first episode. He comes across like that comedic sidekick that producers always think audiences can relate to, but in reality loathes them. However, in the second episode and third he seems a bit more grounded as a character.

  39. I would almost want to see them do the 70´s Blade into a series. I bought an album of some of that stuff. And it was hilarious schlock, but the gothic atmosphere is something I miss and that had it in spades.

  40. You guys do a great at job at making the show sound like must-see fun, than anybody else on the internet so far. I guess there will be way more DAREDEVIL in my life this week after all.

    Also I would LOVE to see a SHE-HULK series, although a TV (I still call it TV) show with a Mo-capped protagonist (She IS after all not exactly human sized) might be a little bit complicated to pull off.

  41. They could always go the Lou Ferrigno route and find a muscular woman and just paint her green.

  42. Yeah, but in 2015 it’s no excuse to do that anymore. (Although…how complicated would it be to film a whole series with undersized props and forced perspective?)

  43. RRA – I think when people talk about Moon Knight they mean the more modern psycholigically wrecked version. Which outside of an arc or 2 I’m pretty unfamiliar with. As opposed to the more classical merc turned rich boy Moon Knight from when I was a kid.

    I would like to see Shang-Chi Master of Kung-Fu since it could fit in well with the lower budget, limited sets approach of this DAREDEVIL show. I’d certainly take that over Luke Cage which is a character I could never fucking stand in any incarnation and won’t bother wasting any time watching once his show or his token white wife’s show comes on the air.

  44. Shoot – “Because the Daredevil Universe is such a gritty place in which space robots would seem unlikely to fit in.”

    Considering that Daredevil has fought everything from evil robots to aliens and submariners throughout his illustrious crime fighting career it really wouldn’t be out of the show’s element to eventually take that route down the line. The tone being established right now in that show isn’t exactly permanent. It’s just a fundamental to introducing DD and his universe.

  45. Yeah Broddie is right. I just like the dexterity of the MCU now where in this same continuity at any time you have the Avengers going around the world, talking ducks and raccoons in outer space, a LOTR/Flash Gordon kingdom in…outer space or another dimension? (I don’t know), a shrinking insect-themed dude with Gordon Gecko as his boss, and now this vigilante fucking people up in NYC.

    Broddie – hate to be dumb, but why do you not like Luke Cage? He made me a fan as a kid when I read that backissue where he beat up Dr. Doom because he refused to pay up the money owed to him, all $200.

  46. RRA – As a person of color the character has just always been very off putting to me. Even as a kid I found him very awkward and felt it was way too obvious that privileged white people were trying to write a brother from the hood. Way too many stereotypes and disingenuous attempts at not letting his “blackness” define him but in the end black stereotypes end up accomplishing that task anyway.

    This was made even worse when they tried to re-establish the character and bring him back to prominence in the 2000’s by working the most offensive racial stereotype of them all into his mythos. Having a white woman come in and be the only one that could “tame the beast” in the black man.

    When you compare him to characters like The Falcon, Black Lightning, Mr. Terrific II, Black Panther and Deathlok who have avoided the same pitfalls even though they were also written by white men it’s even more offensive.

    Fuck Luke Cage and his sweet christmases. But if they ever bring Misty Knight and Iron Fist into this universe I would have to put up with his stupid presence every now and then. A decent tradeoff considering I get exposed to superior characters at the same time. Similar to the comic books.

  47. As a white guy who’s spent a lot of time talking to actual people of color, I cringe when comic book writers try to tackle African-American vernacular. They feel like they have to throw in the (usually ten years out of date) slang because there’s no way a black person could just talk “normal,” right? A white character can have a way of speaking that’s particular to him or her, but a black character gets consumed by this standardized, bastardized street patois. There is certainly a way to do that kind of dialogue, but you have to have, like, an Elmore Leonard calibre ear for cadence and rhythm to pull it off. And if these writers had that, they probably wouldn’t be writing for fuckin’ MOON KNIGHT.

    I also feel like too many of them can’t stop focusing on the elephant in the room, so they bring race up when there’s no reason to. I hate characters who act like being black is something that just happened to them yesterday, so they can’t stop talking about it, like blackness is a vacation they just went on and can’t wait for everybody to see all the pics they took. This is something they’ve lived with their whole lives. It’s not some new shit. I’ve spent a lot of my career as one of two white guys in an office full of black people and it’ll be weeks in between anybody mentioning their race at all, yet black comic book characters can’t go three pages without bringing it up.

    It all comes down to this idea of black people as “the other.” They’re not just people, interacting with other people. The writers treat them like they’re Klingons or some shit, ambassadors of an alien culture.

    Honestly, though, I think the writers’ intentions are usually good, if misguided. I don’t think it shows prejudice as much as ignorance. Maybe the average black man does seem like an alien to the average white nerd from the suburbs. I don’t know if it calls for more diversity in the industry or just better fuckin’ writers.

  48. Mr. Majestyk – I also feel it comes from ignorance. I would never dare say it’s racism cause a lot of those writers do have their heart in the write places intentionally. It’s just that their inexperience with people of color is so vast that it sticks out like a sore thumb when you come across that type of writing.

    This is why I gravitated so much towards Milestone Comics back in the day. That stuff felt very organic partially because it came from the collaborations of African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans. People who realize that the characters are people first and foremost and not some strangers to the party like many non-POC writers tend to approach them ass.

    The comic book industry does need a shake up though. I’d like to think that is slowly happening now that we have more prominent female writers on bigger books. As well as an Asian American creator about to take on the most iconic superhero of all when the new Superman run begans in June. However there is still a long way to go in that regard.

    I used to dream as a kid of becoming the first black Dominican-American writer in the history of DC Comics. But they decided to get on up and leave the freakin East Coast so I guess I’ll shoot for Marvel or Image one of these days If I still decide to pursue that long buried ambition of mine. Lord knows comic books could use and Afro-Carribbean voice today considering how we hispanics are becoming much more prevalent in the make up of North American society.

  49. I watched now episode 2 and while the fight scene really was one of the best I saw in years in any medium (Although…couldn’t DD just sneak in and get the kid without anybody noticing? It didn’t seem like there were cameras in the hallway and every gangster was busy doing something else anyway.), the show really didn’t win me over yet. Mostly because I feel like the showrunner is constantly yelling at me: “LOOK! DARK CINEMATOGRAPHY! MORAL GREY AREAS! BROKEN ANTI HEROES! HOW AWESOME IS THIS?! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU HAVE?!”

    Not ruling out that it will get more entertaining and original as it progresses (Especially since it comes from the guy who was responsible for motherfucking SPARTACUS!), but for now I’m gonna finish THE SHIELD*, then probably start THE WIRE, see what else is available (Oooh, PENNY DREADFUL!) and then I finish Daredevil.

    *I was scared it would be one of those “You had to be there”-shows, but so far it entertains me a lot, mostly because of the unexpected huge dose of dark humor.

  50. BTW, does anybody can explain to me why the episode was called CUTMAN? I kept expecting some comic book villain with that name to show up. (Or at least that Mega Man end boss.) Is that slang for something? Google just sends me to hair stylists and DJs.

  51. *can anybody explain.

    I still haven’t learned to read what I wrote before I hit the submit button.

  52. I haven’t seen the episode, so I can’t say how it relates to that, but a cut man is the guy in boxing that attends to the fighter’s cuts in between rounds to try and, for example, keep them from bleeding into their eyes, which prohibits them from seeing and can cause the ref to call the fight.

  53. Yup, that makes A LOT of sense in many different ways in context of that episode. Thanks for clearing this up.

  54. It’s a boxing term for the person who sees to a fighter’s first aid in between rounds. This can mean putting petroleum jelly on the skin to prevent lacerations, but it also refers to when a boxer’s eye is swollen shut and the cut man makes a small slice with a razor to let the blood out so the fight can see out of it again. So the title of the episode is referring to Claire’s new role as Murdock’s private medic.

  55. I am four episodes deep into the DD series and so far and I am really enjoying it. I dig that it exists in the R rated section of the marvel cinematic universe and is gritty then it’s film counter parts, and the fight scenes are excellent. This show might have the best hand to hand combat of anything Marvel studios has produced.

  56. RRA – You should probably watch this. It’s like something straight out of the silver age brought to life.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XE_jH2eQl4

  57. Broddie – Thanks. That brought a smile to my face.

    Worth noting, I think I’ll defend the idea of a Luke Cage show on this ground: this is the right time and environment for that show to dig its teeth into the social-economical-political bullshit going on right now. In retrospect with DAREDEVIL, I’m impressed they went into gentrification (i.e. tossing poor minorities out like salads). Plus LC will have a black showrunner who worked on SOUTHLAND and that Showtime show with Sabretooth 2.0.

    In retrospect, all things considered that they were white New Yorker Jews in their 40s in the 1960s…I’m impressed how Lee/Kirby came up with something in Black Panther with Wakanda that’s still conceptually provocative 50 something years later.

  58. I know it’s not the Silver Age’s fault, but one of the things that made me stop reading comics a few years back was when all the writers had a meeting and decided that the cool thing to do was bring back all the ridiculous Silver Age shit, but with Bronze Age violence. So there were all these goofy supervillains coming out of the woodwork, but instead of robbing banks and stealing mystical artifacts, they were all genocidal maniacs now.

    It kind of made me realize that a cursory overview of comics mythology is all I really need. Dig a little deeper and it’s pure idiocy all the way down.

  59. Broddie- Just because Daredevil has fought evil robots, submariners and aliens doesn´t mean he should. This is what happens when ideas have dried up and desperation sets in.

  60. Shoot – Or maybe just maybe that’s what happens when writers try to have some actual fun and not just drown the character in complete grimdarkness all the time?

    People often forget that lighthearted fun is as essential to DD throughout his publication history as giving him things to mope about has been.

  61. To be fair I have only read Millers stuff from the 80´s, the most famous ones and I liked it as it was “noirish” with just enough larger than life comic book sensibilities to make it work for me. What I am talking about here is just my own personal taste.

  62. …and that’s cool. Nothing wrong with that. Personal preferences are personal preferences. For me personally the more outlandish at times the better if the execution works. That’s what makes comic books as a medium so special to me compared to other mediums were you can’t work with that type of tonal freedom including movies and general TV.

    Just stating that this is the same character that although he is often at odds and a freenemy of The Punisher; is also bros with Spider-Man who often competes with him in “quipping sessions” to see who is the better smart mouth. There is room for both approaches to his character. He’s that well balanced and well rounded where it doesn’t come across as inconsistent just as an example of how multifaceted some superheroes could really be. Especially since people often ignorantly consider superheroes one dimensional due to their own ignorance.

    Me myself? I grew up on Ann Nocenti’s run while it was still ongoing and then got really acquainted with Miller’s 80’s stuff through reprints as a teen in the late 90’s. So I’ve been very well informed by the darker runs on the character.

    With that said I would like to see the series evolve a bit and harken back to the silver and early bronze age DD stuff though tonally and not just drown in the grimdark influence of the stuff of people like Miller and Nocenti. Similar to what Karl Kesel and Joe Kelly did back in the 90’s and what Mark Waid has been doing with his current run. That could be really fun.

  63. Cutman is an interesting title since the cutman literally cuts open the swollen eye of a boxer to allow him to see. Since DD can’t see, is she opening his “eyes” to something else?
    I’m looking forward to Karen’s trajectory and kinda hope to see Stiltman, The Spot, and at the very least Gladiator. Gladiator is a legit interesting character.

  64. darth brooks – “Gladiator is a legit interesting character.”

    Yeah he’s basically Rain Man as a vigilante.

    Only up to episode 3 right now. Does Melvin Potter show up at all in this show?

    One of the best Frank Miller DD stories revolved around him getting framed by someone who looked just like him. That could be a good basis for an arc that spans across a couple of episodes in the future.

  65. Yeah, Melvin shows up with an important job to do.

    I hope they do the story where Turk briefly becomes Stilt-Man.

  66. Stilt-Man’s legs were in Gladiator/Potter’s workshop. I think DeKnight did a recent interview where he said he wants to do him on the show someday so who knows?

    “It seemed to me that the events from THE AVENGERS-movie actually contributed to rise of organized crime in DAREDEVIL, or am I wrong.”

    Shoot McKay – Yup. That is Marvel’s excuse for how Hell’s Kitchen becomes…well, Hell’s Kitchen again. All things considered, that’s pretty clever.

    I do wish for that one shot of the NYC skyline (you know the shots by helicopter) they had spared some money to CGI in the Avengers Tower. Just because. (Like how the Oscorp building from TASM came pretty close to having a cameo in THE AVENGERS before lawyers or something got in the way.)

  67. They’re already planning LUKE CAGE and IRON FIST and JESSICA JONES and a team-up movie and you’re speculating about TV series for She-Hulk and The Punisher and Shang-Chi and Moon Knight and probably Modok. Give them a break already. They should be concentrating on sending gift baskets to Isaac Florentine until he agrees to direct IRON FIST.

    Only a few episodes into DD but I really like it. I was skeptical, but I’m pleased they went in a completely different direction than the movies and other TV series. I’ve heard complaints about the tone and level of violence and the tired “grim and gritty” tropes, but these things are clichés for a reason guys. This is some high-quality pulp entertainment. Charlie Cox is fantastic (he pulls off both Murdoch’s charm and Daredevil’s bad-assery) and Vincent D’Onofrio’s overgrown baby Kingpin is way more interesting than the usual fat Lex Luthor. I like the fight choreography, a mix of boxing and fancy parkour moves that’s both grueling and fun to watch.

    In the light of the admittedly excellent one-take fight scene I also have to mention BANSHEE, which is doing some great TV action too.

    How do you guys feel about this whole “binge-watching” thing? I don’t really have enough free time to watch more than one or two episodes at a time, but even if I did I don’t really see the appeal. I need time to digest and I’d get bored of even the best TV shows after several episodes in a row. I certainly don’t see the appeal for the network/streaming service. You’d think it would be in their best interest to let momentum and word-of-mouth build over a few months, especially for the heavily-serialized “prestige television” that wins awards and eyeballs. I doubt GAME OF THRONES would be as popular as it is without that participatory element of shared anticipation and dissection and speculation. The only show I’ve seen do something interesting with the “binge-watch” format is ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT season 4, and even that didn’t quite pull it off.

  68. Binge watching isn’t for me. I hardly watch more than two episodes of anything in a row (Maybe 3 or 4 if it’s a half hour show.) and if I like it, I try to preserve it as long as I can. (As I reach the end of what Netflix has of BOB’S BURGERS*, I limited myself to 1 episode per day.)

    And ironically, what is considered as the biggest advantage of VOD (having everything available whenever you want it) makes me even watch LESS! I used to be like: “Oh yeah, show XY is on tonight, I have to watch it or at least record it and then watch it tomorrow, or else a million episodes clog my DVR”, but now I’m like: “Nah, I’m gonna watch it later. It won’t go anywhere for a while.” (Interesting enough: That’s how I stopped watching THE WALKING DEAD last season. I just waited so long to catch up with the new episodes in the streaming service of my pay TV provider, that I just stopped caring. After all the shit that that show pulled over the years, I expected my divorce with Rick & Co to be more dramatic and frustrating.)

    *I’m surprised how good this show is. At least after its uneven 1st season, where the voice actors constantly tried to make every dialogue painfully improvised and the writers tried to figure out if they wanna do a raunchy show with jokes about crack smoking male hookers, paintings of animal anuses and a necrophile teenager or more a family friendly-ish cartoon with occasional vagina and butt jokes. I’m glad they went with the “more family friendly” option, because that’s when the show was the funniest.

  69. I pretty much have to binge watch because there is so much simultaneously, I have to catch up entirely on one, while another backs up. But then it becomes work. I have to finish something rather than enjoy it. Admittedly, it is my job so it’s a little more intense than for others.

    CJ, you are absolutely right. It makes us watch less because it’s so intimidating to have this much material, who can choose? And with 13 episodes available at once, how do you tackle 13 hours? But if it came out weekly I’d just end up DVRing it and forgetting to watch until there’s a dozen backed up anyway.

  70. The problem with VOD over here is the severe lack of content but also how slow the output is. Netflix still has yet to put out season four of THE WALKING DEAD and I have not bothered with the show ever since.

    Another damn problem is the rights to the content. One week you can watch Scott Adkins kick ass in NINJA and then next week without notice, there is no more ass to be kicked anymore as they pulled the film.

  71. Personally I thought the binging on DD worked for me. The filmmakers pushed it as a 13 hour movie in press materials, but really it worked more like a graphic novel or a collected trade paperback that you consume (if you want) in one sitting.

  72. re: the Avengers being the real villians

    While I appreciate what you guys might be saying, there probably is no Hell’s Kitchen or Earth if the Chitari defeated the Avengers so it’s really unfair to blame the Avenger’s for the problems in Daredevil.

    I’m also realizing that they purposely make it where if you don’t want to watch all them at once that they break down in to 2 part episodes. So if you watch two epsidoes it’s like watching one movie so this is kind like 6 movies.

  73. Sternshein – Not really blaming them as much as its pointing out the unintended consequences of these superhero battles.

  74. RE: Binge watching

    I thought I would be able to do it with this series but yeah I don’t think I have it in me to do that anymore. That’s why I’m on episode 6 now after about 5 days of watching it. Back when I was a teen it was no problem. I used to watch like 5 movies a day for that reason. But as an adult and with my time preoccupied with other interests and obligations I can’t quite match that anymore.

    Although I do think Crustacean is on to something. Having everything at once kinda spoils you and doesn’t give you any incentive to anticipate the next episode the same way a weekly series does. Probably why THE FLASH works so well for me. It keeps me coming back for more with it’s weekly cliffhangers. Wouldn’t be as effective if I could get the resolutions to those cliffhangers right away. After all speculation between episodes with other fans is also part of the fun.

  75. I am on episode 11 at this point and the fight scenes and action continue to be excellent, but it feels like the show would be better served condensed into less episodes. The 10 episodes I have watched have been good, but the series can be very talky and takes a while to build momentum. In general I don’t have a problem with lots of dialog and deliberate pacing, however there are times that the characters and drama aren’t strong enough to support the slow pacing and heavy dialog, and the show feels like a bad episode of MAD MEN. Those 10 episodes could be cut into 5 or 6 episodes with a much more exciting and better paced narrative.

  76. Still haven’t watched any further episodes, but apparently THE PUNISHER will appear in season 2 and he will be played by Jon Bernthal. I approve. (Now if Netflix gives him his own show, I kinda hope Kurt Sutter will have some time to oversee it.)

  77. I think it’s a great call. I was just watching FURY and thinking about what a great Castle he would be. He’s got this blue collar toughness about him that you don’t see in young actors much. That busted nose just speaks volumes about what kind of motherfucker we’re dealing with. Obviously, Frank Grillo would be the better choice but if they’re trying to stay in the same age group as the guy playing Daredevil, there really aren’t any other options.

  78. I agree. I think he is a great choice. I don´t care at all for anything Marvel related, but DAREDEVIL was a great show even adults can enjoy.

  79. I would have done the Luke Cage route and showed Iron Fist kung fu fighting dudes.

  80. Didn’t know that the Belushi/O’Connell lawyer show was such a cult classic, that they are rebooting it.
    But why should anybody shave a shelf?

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