Anyway.

Re. Rambo thuggishness – yes, exactly, for me. I think the thuggishness might have worked better had they made more effort to have the audience follow Murdoch’s journey downwards. It was too easy to feel alienated from him. A movie that *did* do a good job of this – right up until the point at which the character starts actually killing people – was Shallow Grave. My inclination with Daredevil would be to try something similar: put Murdoch in terrible danger from a baddie (at a younger, less certain age, perhaps) so that when the baddie screws up and is lying (or hanging) there helpless, Murdoch’s quick decision to kill him is more understandable.

Re Daredevil – as a fan of the comic book (the Frank Miller run at least) it was fun seeing the *** SPOILER *** lifted word for word from the now classic Daredevil #181.

Also fun is knowing that many of the incidental characters in the film (Quesada, Everett among others) are named after creators who’ve worked on the title over the decades.

However: one of the defining traits of Matt Murdoch’s character is his deeply ingrained – if at times challenged – morality. As such, seeing him as a typical Rambo thug was distressing, though the film makers did try to incorporate his journey from thug to true hero into his character arc. While that redeems the thuggery somewhat from a creative standpoint, it’s a shame that the movie picked up on the trappings of the comic but not its heart.