Daredevil (Marvel/Netflix)
Taking place right after the events of Netflix’s related show, Defenders, Daredevil season three, which dropped Oct. 19, follows Matt Murdock at his lowest points: physically broken, emotionally crushed and, most importantly, robbed of his faith.
For those who don’t know, Daredevil is about Matthew Murdock, who, as a young boy, was robbed of his sight in a freak accident that also increased his other senses to superhuman levels. He uses echolocation to sense everyone and everything around him. He can also tell when someone is lying by listening to their heartbeat. This season, using his powers and mastery over the martial arts, Murdock protects the people of Hell’s Kitchen against everything that seeks to do them harm as the masked vigilante Daredevil.
Quite possibly the greatest part of the Daredevil show as a whole is the acting. While almost every actor delivers amazing performances, Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk are true standouts. Cox’s portrayal as a blind man is so believable that after watching the show I had to triple check that he wasn’t actually blind. Whenever D’Onofrio is in a scene you can’t help but feel uneasy. Even though you know that his performance is fake, you also wouldn’t be surprised if he reached through the screen and started attacking you. It’s that intense.
The other high point of the show is the cinematography. The show is beautiful. While visually it is very dark, nothing seems obscured — it pulls off this aesthetic perfectly. Another successful aspect of all three of the Daredevil seasons that makes a return in last season is what some refer to as a “hallway fight.” Appearing for the first time in season one, the “hallway fight” is a fight scene where there are no cuts in filming. The actors are on screen for an exceptionally long amount of time without the ability to take breaks between the action. In the third season, this scene takes place in a prison and goes on for an incredible 10 minutes. In this time, Cox not only shares dialogue with other actors but undergoes several jaw-dropping fight sequences all while staying in character in one take.
Overall, I would recommend Daredevil to everyone who likes dark crime dramas. Its action scenes are unparalleled by any of its peers, standing leaps and bounds above any of the other marvel Netflix shows. The only warning I would give to people considering watching this show is that even though the show takes place in the same universe as the Marvel movies, it feels incredibly different. It doesn’t share the light tone full of witty humor and cartoonish violence that makes the films so lovable.
Daredevil’s world is one full of realistic violence: people being shot in the head, decapitated by car doors and being beaten to a bloody pulp. But if you can stomach the violence, Daredevil season three has 13 hours of run time that will go by in the blink of an eye.
Contact Arts Writer Sam Berman at Sam.Berman@colorado.edu.
