Daredevil: Director’s Cut – Blu-ray Disc Review

September 23, 2008 – 10:34 AM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Ben Affleck, Colin Farrell, FOX, Jennifer Garner, Jon Favreau, Kevin Smith, Mark Steven Johnson, Michael Clarke Duncan

has an average rating of 5.5 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio & Dolby Digital 5.1
include full DVD ports in Standard Definition & more!
–
– 2003
– 133 minutes
– FOX
Street Date : September 30th, 2008
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Overall Verdict – Recommended

Buy it for $27.95 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself is both Written and Directed by Mark Steven Johnson and based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name created by Stan Lee & Bill Everett. The big screen adaptation of the comic book superhero came with some obvious complications in being made. According to the film’s Wikipedia entry, “The film began development in 1997 at 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures, before New Regency acquired the rights in 2000.“

The story revolves around our hero named “Matt Murdock” (played by Ben Affleck) who’s blind from an accident that occurred during his childhood. When he lost his vision at a young age Matt realized that his sense of hearing had become more amplified and served as an almost sonar-like soundscape to help him almost see like a bat does. At day our man Matt is a lawyer defending those he can tell are innocent and at night he’s a masked vigilante fighting crime that we call “Daredevil“. Along the way he encounters a female by the name of “Elektra” (played by Jennifer Garner) who immediately strikes some interest but is obviously playing hard to get.

The real plot and conflict arises once Elektra’s father is murdered by a hired goon named “Bullseye” (played by Colin Farrell). Elektra believes it was “Daredevil” that murdered her father and is set on revenge. Little does she know that the town’s leading businessman “Wilson Fisk“, also known as the “The Kingpin” (played by Michael Clarke Duncan) is actually responsible and has the police “in his pocket” (so-to-speak). It’s up to our leading man to find justice here and prove that he didn’t murder Elektra’s father.

Overall “Daredevil” was an alright comic book superhero film adaption in comparison to some horrible examples of the past few decades and is definitely worth the watch again, years later. I had personally only seen the original theatrical (2003 DVD) version prior to this and missed out on seeing the “Director’s Cut” in 2005 with it’s DVD release. So I’m happy to finally to get to see it in Hi-Def and am sure you all will be as well. I’d also like to comment that I love the (short) cameos here from Stan Lee, Frank Miller and Kevin Smith. Jon Favreau as Matt’s best friend “Franklin ‘Foggy’ Nelson” is a downright treat as well. To think Favreau would later go on to Direct the big screen adaption of another Marvel comic character, “Iron Man“.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte Blu-ray Disc). First off, I’ll admit that FOX surprised me with “Daredevil: Director’s Cut” by not opting for a BD-25 and MPEG-2 like they’ve been known for doing in the past. The transfer here to High Definition from an original Super 35mm film source comes across impressive at first but does however hold some minor flaws. The amount of detail found here is one of the impressive features this transfer holds but on the downside you do get a huge amount of film grain and noise present — inconsistently I might add — throughout the film. Color palette here is obviously very vibrant early on in the film with strong emphasis on red and an accurate representation of the fleshtones. The black level is for the most part solid with only a few instances of problems in what appear to be scenes added in for the “Director’s Cut“. Overall the transfer here left me somewhat impressed but not enough to earn anything higher than a “4 Star Rating” for video quality. This definitely is a well-needed improvement over the DVD release but nothing that is going to leap off the screen at you. Fans of the film will be more than pleased, that much is for sure.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and Dolby Digital 5.1 @448kbps. The fact we get a Dolby Digital 5.1 track included is impressive of FOX compared to past releases but it’s obviously the DTS-HD MA that outshines it — if you’re capable of decoding (hearing) it. There certainly has an excellent amount of rear channel and bass presence in the DTS-HD 5.1 MA mix. Once our main character loses his sight it seems that the sound effects immediately become over-amplified to represent his hyper sense of hearing. The sonar-like soundscape that “Daredevil” uses to map out his surroundings is pretty audibly realistic (as possible) here. Dialogue is delivered very distinct throughout the film and never requires any volume adjustment. The original music (Score) by Graeme Revell is certainly done justice here as well as the songs on the film’s Soundtrack by artists such as Evanescence and Fuel to just name a few. This earns itself a very respectable “4.5 Star Rating” for overall audio quality and is definitely an improvement over the original DVD release(s). I’d be lying if I said the video and audio here feel equal as the audio really seems to totally “outshine” the visual presentation which is very fitting for a film about a blind superhero.

Bonus Materials are all presented in Standard Definition (actually using AVC MPEG-4) video and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound @224kbps.

• Audio Commentary by Writer / Director Mark Steven Johnson and Producer Avi Arad
• “Enhanced Viewing Mode” enables an on-screen indicator that allows you to check out some “behind-the-scenes” footage as you watch the film — in a standalone full screen presentation. Users enable the featurettes by pressing the “ENTER” button on their remote when an indicator appears on-screen. This does NOT contain any Picture-In-Picture video overlay of any fashion as the title and description (by FOX) may suggest. I just want to totally clarify that to consumers (and readers).
• “Fact & Fiction Feature” allows you to enable basically a (subtitle) text track that runs during the film giving you trivia facts throughout. Even though this lacks graphics it is very much worth checking out for die-hard fans of the film.
• “Beyond Hell’s Kitchen: Making Daredevil” (59 minutes) is a very in-depth documentary that proves to definitely be worth the watch. This includes interviews with the Writer / Director Mark Steven Johnson, Producers Avi Arad and Gary Foster, Actors Ben Affleck, Joe Pantoliano, Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Farrell and Jennifer Garner.
• “Jennifer Garner Screen Test” (2 minutes 30 seconds)
• “Featured Villain: Kingpin” (2 minutes 30 seconds) includes a great interview with Actor Michael Clarke Duncan who depicts the character on film.
• “Daredevil: HBO First Look TV Special” (25 minutes) is included which has some pretty watchable content in it. This obviously originally aired on HBO as the subtitle suggests.
• “Moving Through Space: A Day with Tom Sullivan” (8 minutes 30 seconds) features the sight impaired consultant used on the film. He unlike the main character in the film has actually been blind since his birth but he’s definitely not letting it stop him as you’ll soon find out here. Very inspirational little featurette here and I’m glad to see it included.
• “Giving the Devil His Due” (16 minutes) takes at look at the editing process and discusses the two versions of the film. Those being, “The Director’s Cut” (found here) and the original Theatrical version.
• “Multi-Angle Dailies” (3 minutes) are included for a total of five different action scenes in the film. This is impressive to a degree but likely will be enjoyed only by die-hard fans of the film.
• “Trailers” (5 minutes) are included for 2 theatrical and 1 teaser. These sadly are not presented in Hi-Def, just 480p and feature Stereo sound.
• Music Videos are included for the following songs:
Fuel – “Won’t Back Down” (3 minutes 30 seconds)
The Calling – “For You” (4 minutes)
Evanescence – “Bring Me to Life” (4 minutes)
Music Promotional Spot (30 seconds) was a TV commercial that originally ran for the film’s Soundtrack “Daredevil: The Album“.
• “Still Galleries” are included for the following areas: “Storyboards“, “Costumes“, “Set Design“, “Production Stills” and “Props“.
• “The Comic Book” is split up into three parts that all showcase the comic book origins of the character.
“The Men Without Fear: Creating Daredevil” (59 minutes) is a documentary that features interviews with various writers and artists that worked on the Marvel comic book over the years. This list includes some big names like Stan Lee, Frank Miller and even Kevin Smith.
“Shadow World Tour” (6 minutes) takes a look at the main character’s ability to use hyper senses to explore the world around him even though he’s blind in examples from both the original comic book as well as in the motion picture.
“Modeling Sheets” are still frame images you navigate with the left and right directional buttons on your remote.

Overall the bonus materials are impressive first off in the sense that they are ALL presented in the AVC MPEG-4 codec as opposed to the usual usage of MPEG-2 on Standard Definition DVD ports. They run rather lengthy to a degree and include some nice little features like the text “trivia track” and others. Safe to say fans will be pleased that they get full DVD ports of the original bonus materials and some extras. The fact this also contains the “Director’s Cut” is a major plus to all viewers but it would have been nice to also include the Theatrical Cut as well using “Seamless Branching” or something. Either way, the bonus materials are somewhat impressive to only be basically DVD ports and earn a decent “3.5 Star Rating” overall.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

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