Daredevil
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: February 14, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
23
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
In short, the actors deserve a big round of applause -– especially Affleck, for finally wiping the smug look off of his face (OK, 80% smug-free); Garner, for her dead sexy mix of attitude and adrenaline; and the grunting, googly-eyed Farrell, for … well, for being "fookin’" nuts, I guess. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is, in short, your money's worth, better than we expect, more fun than we deserve. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Not woeful, not wonderful, merely watchable. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Brought to the screen with a mix of jaunty humor and jagged violence that should have worked more effectively than it does. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It's an adequate superhero yarn, but, hopefully, it's not the best of the burgeoning genre that 2003 has to offer. Read full review
60
Film ThreatMichael Dequina
A faithful translation of the character and one of his more memorable tales on the page; it satisfies as an adventure and as a more intimate story. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineFrank Lovece
The movie's physical violence isn't gratuitous -- it's the emotional violence that makes this a movie for grown-ups, not kids. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It isn't a great film, or even a greatly original one. Still, it has many grace notes, and interesting oddities. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Its overall effect is distinctly underwhelming. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Daredevil the movie strains itself trying to catch up with Sam Raimi's web-slinging megasmash. It's a faceless copy, right down to the muscle-rock groaning on the soundtrack. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Like Affleck himself, the film is perfectly satisfactory without being deeply satisfying. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Slick, expensive and filled with good-looking actors flexing muscles, but once it grabs our attention it doesn't really reward it...this movie doesn't have fear -- or sheer wonder and marvel -- enough. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Though it begins as a praiseworthy depiction of a unique man, it turns into a formulaic disappointment long before the overly violent end... Comic-book adaptations must remain open to sequels, but this kind of coy cowardice is despicable. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Unfortunately, Garner doesn't have as much screen time as her prominence in the advertising would indicate: Daredevil has a hard time staying alive when she's not on the scene. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
For all its ambition, Daredevil can't overcome the fact that at its colorful center lies a perfect blank in a bad suit. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Alone among the cast, Farrell seems to understand that this movie -- which is lazy and stoned, for all its loud music -- needed somebody to go ape-shit, to pretend to give a crap or at least to have fun. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
Johnson rips off a lot of "Batman," especially in the cathedral climax, but that's not so bad: The movie looks best when it looks like other, better movies. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyJohn Powers
Johnson clearly digs the idea of Daredevil as an agonized hero, slathering the screen with gloomy lighting and Catholic imagery, yet the movie has far less emotional weight than, say, "Spider-Man" (whose building-hopping pyrotechnics it often appears to be copying). Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The film is at its worst, however, when Daredevil takes over. That's partly because Affleck, a handsome fellow with possibly the most inert film presence of any actor since Sonny Tufts, looks ridiculous in Daredevil's red leather pantsuit and horned mask. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
This franchise-hungry champion of the underdog brings no sense of fun to his pursuit of bad guys; it's just the fate he's stuck with. Read full review
50
Film ThreatKevin Carr
If you manage to sit through the whole film, don’t leave before the humorous tag in the credits. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Daredevil is the sort of half-assed, visually lackadaisical potboiler that makes you rue the day that comic-book franchises ever took over Hollywood. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Far too often, the film has to submit to the inevitable and stop so that Affleck can struggle like a yoga student to bend his face into a human emotion. He even cries. So might you. Read full review
40
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Torn between moody grandiosity and cartoonish mayhem, Daredevil tries to have it both ways, and succeeds at neither. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This dull actioner, written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson, uses voice-over to hurry along Daredevil's genesis tale, and Affleck's rigid performance is a perpetual drag on the story. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Casting Affleck would have paid off had the conflicted, acerbic star of “Boiler Room,” “Changing Lanes,” or even “Bounce” shown up. Instead we're left with the cardboard hero of “Armageddon” and “The Sum Of All Fears,” a caretaker leading man wholly dependent on the quality of the movie around him. Sadly, there's not much of that. Read full review
40
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The movie is derivative, flat, halfhearted, its squareness unrelieved by irony or fantasy. [3 March 2003, p. 94]
40
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
A shame Johnson couldn't give the movie over to Bullseye, since Farrell displays more danger with a cocked brow and sharpened pencil than Affleck with pages of melodramatic mush he can't force out without sounding like a high-school drama student with a sore throat. Read full review
38
New York PostLou Lumenick
Mind-numbing, would-be comic-book franchise, which often seems as blind as its hero -- not to mention deaf and dumb. Read full review
38
USA TodayMike Clark
Kevin Smith shows up briefly as a lab technician in the miserable Daredevil, and that's a pity. This is a movie that desperately needs the presence of Smith's trademark sidekicks Jay and Silent Bob, with Smith as Bob, ragging worse than ever on his old pal Ben Affleck. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
For the most part, Daredevil doesn't take a single dare; it travels the road much trod, even if it's through the midtown air. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Tacky and disposable. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
An action blockbuster that's one of the biggest misfires in its genre since "Godzilla." Read full review
25
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
How did an embarrassment of comic-book riches become simply an embarrassment as a movie? Read full review
20
Village VoiceEd Park
Affleck and impressively amazonian Alias star Jennifer Garner (as the ninjitsu-savvy daughter of a wealthy tycoon) are lankier than "Spider-Man's" Maguire and Dunst, which is good if you like lanky, but their relationship substitutes cliché for chemistry. Read full review
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