Daredevil

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald Rating: * * * )

Daredevil's particular superhero novelty isn't a schtick - it's a cane.

He's a blind lawyer by day, which is metaphorically convenient for a superhero in the justice-rendering business. It also explains something about his costume.

Not just the horned headgear with no eye slits, but its maroon colour. As his neighbourhood priest - who knows about regular confessor Matt Murdock's alter-ego - says: "I'm not too crazy about the outfit."

But in the heavily upholstered and masked role Ben Affleck does give good chin, mostly avoiding his usual smirking and seeming suited to playing the haunted, differently abled and gymnastic superhero.

Unfortunately, the movie behind him sags while trying to mix all that high-kicking spectacle and attempting to be dark, serious, morally conflicted, Catholic-subtexted and sometimes sexy between its action sequences.

It doesn't help that those set-pieces aren't that hot either. Many are an incomprehensible panic of quick-edits not helped by the movie's urges to spend most of its time in those shadows.

Though the effects which let us into Daredevil's heightened senses - his hearing allows him to "see" sound reflections - are nifty, especially when the pouring rain lets him visualise the face of romantic interest cum sparring partner Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner) for the first time.

Garner might be all cheekbones and cleavage, but she gets to do more than just be decorative. Even if it is in a little black leather number with sword accessories.

Where Daredevil doesn't quite achieve lift-off is that it seems afraid to have fun with its character's dark side. There's quite bit of brooding to be done in endless scenes that are supposed to show just how morally conflicted one can get after a hard night's vigilantism before turning in for the night in his coffin-like sensory-deprivation tank.

It tries for gravitas, but it just gets ponderous.

Conversely, when it comes to the baddies, this serious comic-book adaptation turns into a cartoon with Colin Farrell's mad-eyed Irish hitman Bullseye (who's a dab hand at throwing stuff in lethal fashion) and Michael Clarke Duncan's evil tycoon Fisk (whose huge cigars threaten most of downtown Manhattan with second-hand smoke).

It might have dared to be different but it still feels a mismatched, lacklustre affair, without the spark of its immediate comic-to-screen predecessor Spider-Man.

And in the end we're left with an average action movie based on an obscure superhero, complete with amusing fashion show and mildly entertaining trapeze act.

* Cast: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, Michael Clarke Duncan

* Director: Mark Steven Johnson

* Rating: M (medium level violence)

* Running time: 100 mins

* Screening: Village, Hoyts Berkeley cinemas