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| Created by Drew Goddard |
One of the unique advantages the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets from being an interconnected universe is that there is a wide variety of story types and genres that can be explored within that universe. Captain America can go from old-fashioned pulp adventure to paranoid conspiracy thriller, Guardians of the Galaxy is a comedy space opera, Thor is a science-fantasy epic, they can do anything.
But not every story possibility lends itself to blockbuster film making. You can easily get a big audience draw from Thor, or Captain America, with Iron Man or The Avengers you can even pass the billion dollar mark, but I'm not sure there's a sizable amount of people on Earth that want to see a movie about Howard the Duck. (although that didn't stop George Lucas from trying) That's why I was excited when Marvel announced that they would be doing Netflix series based around their more obscure street-level characters, it shows that they're big enough to go small. Streaming services in general has opened the floodgates for concepts that wouldn't be viable in theaters or on broadcast TV to find a dedicated audience. The inner workings of the ascent to power of a congressman, or the complex social hierarchies of a women's prison, generally stuff too taboo for mainstream audiences to touch, suddenly gets to flourish under this new business model.
Besides changing what we expect from media, it's also been changing the way we consume media. Once upon a time, if you didn't watch something as it aired, you generally didn't expect to ever get another chance too see it outside of reruns. That's why so many shows were episodic in nature, i.e. each episode was its own self contained story, you just couldn't expect everyone to tune in week to week. VHS may have mitigated the problem somewhat, but the tapes had limited storage capacity, degraded over time, and took up far too much shelf space for keeping an entire season of something to be practical - all of that assuming you had a VCR to record and play back shows with.
Then the arrival of DVDs, and later time shifting services like DVRs and on demand streaming changed everything. It suddenly became a lot easier to do over-arching interconnected storylines with complex characters, because people could now follow it more easily since they didn't need to be in a certain place at a certain time to do so. Fifteen, even ten years ago, something like Game of Thrones or Mad Men or Orange is the New Black - or even the MCU itself now that I think about it - probably couldn't have existed, and they certainly wouldn't have been the norm, but now they increasingly are.
Daredevil is definitely a departure from the norm for Marvel Studios. The closest entry I can think of is Winter Soldier, and even that's a stretch since Daredevil is much smaller in scale and very different in tone. Regardless of their genre, Marvel Studios so far has kept up a standard approach to aesthetics for the most part, usually resembling comic panels come to life. Daredevil ditches that for harsh lighting, handheld cameras, and a pulp-noir texture that feels somewhere between Agent Carter and Gone Girl. To wit, Matt Murdock was blinded as a child by toxic chemicals that enhanced his remaining senses to near-superhuman levels. He grew up, and by day he works as a defense attorney alongside long-time associate Foggy Nelson, but by night he becomes the mysterious masked vigilante only known as "the Devil of Hell's Kitchen". While doing his job, both personas stumble upon an organized crime ring targeting the neighborhood eventually discovering a plot by mysterious billionaire Wilson Fisk to clean up the streets via forced gentrification.Netflix's loose content restrictions allow Daredevil to go where the movies cannot. Like, the Iron Man movies are a good time, but Disney would never let them go into Tony Stark's drinking problems. This is best exemplified in the Daredevil's approach to action. Whereas most of the action in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been built around lasers and monster punches and magic hammers, but Daredevil's action is built around close-quarters brawling among mostly normal humans with mundane weaponry, which makes it feel a lot more brutal, tactile, and immediate. It's less like The Avengers' candy colored CGI fireworks and more reminiscent of Asian martial arts films ala Bruce Lee.
The action, while certainly impressive, is not the primary focus of Daredevil. Instead, it's a much more character driven show, and that means it lives or dies on the acting, which is phenomenal. Charlie Cox comes across as an immensely likable cad as Matt Murdock, and his Daredevil is appropriately menacing. Eldon Henson brings great comic relief as Foggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Wol works wonders as client turned co-worker Karen Page, and they all have great conversational rapport, but the best by far is Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk.
If Marvel Studios has had any real weakness, it's that besides Loki they generally don't have very compelling or memorable villains, but Wilson Fisk is a great, complex character. He has a very specific image of what he wants the new Hell's Kitchen to be, and he will do anything and everything to achieve it, operating with the shy emotional maturity of a twelve year old. All those poor people already living there are either obstacles to be overcome or tools to be used in his sociopathic pursuit of his dream. He comes across as very comfortable with his position at the top of the ladder, but he's got a rage barely concealed below the surface that is always threatening to come loose.Daredevil can go toe-to-toe with the best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also being utterly distinct from it. Even if you don't care for or about the Marvel movies, if you have Netflix, Daredevil is a must watch.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
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