1 of 5 | Daredevil (Charlie Cox) returns in "Daredevil: Born Again," premiering Tuesday on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel
LOS ANGELES, March 4 (UPI) -- Daredevil: Born Again, premiering Tuesday on Disney+, is an improvement over the Netflix series. Born Again revisits the previous incarnation in a way that acknowledges the time that's passed and allows for growth.
There is no recap for new viewers, but an opening scene establishes lawyers Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) enjoying a night out. They're actually discussing nostalgia, something this series will upend.
Matt, who is blind, displays heightened hearing to anticipate a crime and puts on his Daredevil costume to fight another masked assailant. That masked killer is Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) from the previous series and Daredevil comics, but anyone without that knowledge can still see he's a serious threat.
Daredevil and Bullseye's intense fight holds a single shot and lets the costumed stuntmen perform in place of the stars.
Later, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) gives a little bit more information about his past in dialogue. Fisk and his wife, Vanessa, (Ayelet Zurer) talk about his recovery from an injury, presumably the last time Daredevil defeated him.
Fisk was the Kingpin of the mob but runs for mayor of New York. This is an undeniably relevant story asking if a criminal can change, and if democratic elections can be compromised by them.
At first, Fisk seems to want to make progress by the book. His interactions with Matt also hint at their past conflicts. Fisk says Matt tried to kill him a few times while Matt clarifies that he was only trying to incarcerate Fisk.
Born Again really takes the Netflix Daredevil and changes it into a new show. After that opening scene, the original trio is divided and Matt hangs up his Daredevil persona.
Obviously, Born Again will be about what makes him become a superhero again, but it will take a lot of drama to get him there. For fans who appreciate Matt the lawyer, this series really emphasizes the legal and political stories.
One such story is when Matt represents a victim of police brutality, another relevant modern issue to tackle. The client killed a cop in self defense, causing the NYPD to intensify its efforts against someone threatening their reign.
There are many episodes with no Daredevil appearance, but still Matt has to fight bad guys trying to silence his witness. Those fights are particularly brutal and show more of Cox in action himself.
It's not as graphic as the martial arts films The Raid or The Night Comes for Us, but it's as brutal as Marvel gets since the magnificently gratuitous Punisher: War Zone movie.
Matt's fights carry the anger of the fact that he does not want this, but villains force him. He's good at it but hates and resents that violence is his gift. This is also a similar theme in John Wick but interesting to explore in the context of a Marvel comic book.
Occasional F-words also show Born Again is not for kids. Disney+ has come a long way since it edited Elisabeth Shue's curse out of Adventures in Babysitting. Now they'll let bad guys say it multiple times.
New characters add interesting developments to the themes inherent to the material. Matt dates Heather Glenn (Margarita Leveiva), a therapist who has written a book about people who wear masks.
Heather sees masked criminals and vigilantes as one and the same, an oversimplification that Matt always dealt with and one many comic book properties have addressed. What's interesting here is that Matt gets defensive but still can't give away his secret identity.
Mayor Fisk has an aide, Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini) who is practically worshipful of his boss. Daniel isn't as savvy as Fisk but proves to be a quick study as the rising next generation of corruption.
Cameos from other Marvel series give welcome credit to some of the more unsung characters. They're used sparingly so it's not exhausting like the films can be.
Daredevil: Born Again delivers action and intrigue for fans of the Netflix series. It also hastens the pace of storytelling to make it the best on-screen depiction of Daredevil yet.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
