10 "Awful" Comic Book Movies Worth A Second Chance

3. Daredevil

In 2003, comic book films were enjoying a renaissance. Batman & Robin was quickly becoming a distant memory. Then came Daredevil, which was the first big misstep of this renaissance. Fans were already pre-dispositioned to hating the movie once it was announced that Ben Affleck, who by that point in his career had chosen some really terrible roles, was cast as the Man Without Fear. And when the movie was finally released, it was pretty obvious that director Mark Steven Johnson had bitten off far more than he could ever possibly chew by trying to basically shove Frank Miller's entire iconic run into a 90-minute film. The movie was actually supposed to be a lot longer. Fox forced Johnson to cut thirty minutes of footage from the film, which resulted in a mess of a film that lacks any sort of coherent plot. But a few years later, Fox finally allowed the release of a director's cut that restores those thirty minutes. And now, the plot makes a whole lot more sense and the movie is a lot stronger as a result. It's still far from perfect. Jennifer Garner's Elektra is still entirely superfluous and easily the worst part of the movie, plus the idiotic playground fight between Elektra and Matt is still intact. But Elektra's overall role in the film is far diminished. There's an entire subplot that explains how the Kingpin was brought down, which involves Jon Favreau's Foggy Nelson playing a much larger role. The movie on a whole is far grittier and much more true to the Miller comics on which it was based, Affleck comes off much better in this version, and Michael Clarke Duncan's Kingpin is effective and imposing.