'Business...it's always business'

Finally caught up with the Daredevil movie over the weekend. Now apparently some critics/cynics/whatever are carping about the film, and in my opinion such people should be locked indefinitely inside their local emporium with only a constant loop of some three-hour film about Virginia Woolf for company. It may not be Spiderman, but it's a different kind of film, just as it was a different kind of comicbook, despite some superficial similarities. Daredevil is a darker, moodier beast altogether.

The film is faithful enough to the comic book to please the fanboys but is sufficiently slick, commercial and action-packed to be accessible to mainstream audiences. Ben Affleck is better than anyone had any right to expect in the title role while self-styled Hollywood badboy Colin Farrell is spot-on as his nemesis Bullseye. Perhaps the main criticism I would have about the film is at times it's too slick where an extra few minutes here and there building up the credibility of the central romance between Daredevil and Elektra (played by Jennifer Garner, above left) might have helped.

But listen, the action zips, the jokes are funny, the stars look buff and how often does a megabudget multiplex action film with such a pro-welfare anti-business theme integral to its premise come around? So give ol' Hornhead a break, get the popcorn in and give yourself a treat. And as an extra tip, get in there early enough to catch the X2 trailer while you're at it. This looks promising enough to help me forget they cast Alan Cumming of all people as Nightcrawler. Fans of the original X-Men line-up should also be aware that this time the Iceman cometh...