I love the character of Daredevil. His comic books were my favorite to read when I was a kid. I was there on the #SaveDaredevil message boards when the original Netflix show was canceled in 2018. That said, I was profoundly disappointed with “Daredevil: Born Again.”
Netflix canceled its hit Marvel show “Daredevil” after the third season premiered. While there were plans for further seasons, the story mostly wrapped up in the third. Matt Murdock became secure in his daily life as a lawyer, opening a firm with his best friends, and in nightlife as a vigilante, finally defeating his nemesis, Kingpin.
Once the television rights to the character reverted to Disney and Marvel Studios, however, the marketability of a familiar face and critical acclaim was too difficult to pass up, and thus we have a revival series on Disney+. “Daredevil: Born Again” was not born out of creative inspiration, but rather a desire to add a new box on a streaming service for you to click on.
A multi-year production scandal mired in creative differences, clashing tones, and reshoots definitely didn’t help this creatively bankrupt reboot. The show was originally pitched to be a lighter legal procedural rather than a gritty drama. Marvel was unhappy with the direction, so they hired Dario Scardapane to make the show darker after his work on the Netflix “Punisher” series.
With this in mind, I went into the show ready to be generous about the tonal clash since episodes from the original vision and the updated, more violent interpretation were being edited together. The new direction also follows up on plot threads from the original show, albeit halfheartedly.
Most of the callbacks to the original show are just easter eggs or brief mentions; nothing about the story in “Born Again” actually feels like a response to the events of “Daredevil.” Connections to other projects aside, though, “Born Again” is simply not a good TV show.
The story is bafflingly thin, following Matt as he hangs up his Daredevil suit following the death of his best friend at the hands of his enemy, Bullseye. What follows is a meditation on grief and the nature of vigilantes as Matt slowly learns to suit up again. Sounds cool on paper, but I never felt this conflict at all.
Characters are constantly telling us what the story is about, but nothing Matt does in the story actually reflects his journey. Episodes tell self-contained stories about trials, bank robberies, and serial killers, but Matt never takes an active role. Events just occur weightlessly around him.
These mini-adventures are about exciting subjects — who doesn’t love a heist sequence? — but the show is produced so glossily that intensity is snuffed out. Nearly every scene is shot to capture what is happening, and nothing about the angle or framing tells me how to feel.
RELATED: Review | ‘The Pitt’ is a visceral medical masterpiece
Usually, in a heist scene, a camera might track the robbers and move around the space to build momentum. Instead, the “Born Again” heist scene is lit flatly, making the room gray and lifeless, the camera doesn’t move, and I don’t feel anything. This may sound like a cherry-picked low moment, but the entire show feels like this.
Even when the action scenes kick in, and the directors clearly had ideas for a cool, long-take camera set up, there is so much VFX haze and rubbery CGI that I once again felt nothing. Daredevil mostly stuck to the ground in the Netflix show, but here he is swinging around rooftops and flipping over his adversaries to more accurately depict his comic book fighting style — it’s just shot and rendered horribly.
I have far more to say about elements of the show that don’t work, like Kingpin’s subplot as the mayor of New York and the ridiculously underwritten and boring political drama that makes up nearly half of the show, but I did watch the whole thing. My ability to sit through every episode isn’t a testament to the quality of the show, which again, sucks, but instead was thanks entirely to Charlie Cox.
While I can’t recommend the show any less, any time Cox was on screen, I snapped out of my boredom coma and briefly paid attention. Cox’s performance as Daredevil is magnetic; it’s like watching the character I loved as a kid brought to life. He almost makes the grueling nine episodes worth enduring.