Breaking Away vs. Daredevil

Skottula

on 4/18/2014

A story of the realization that sometimes the values you think you will cherish and the idols you hold dear your entire life sometimes end up being things you outgrow against a superhero movie that, while not as terrible as it was upon its initial viewing, just missed the mark. Breaking Away captured so much youthful exuberance and defiance that it was impossible not to connect with the story as a viewer. Paul Dooley was so believable as the father of the main character and his performance made the whole story and the film's ultimate ending so much more powerful. Daredevil seemed like a movie that was just trying to get a property to the screen before anyone else could do it, banking on names that people bared good will towards at the time of its release. Unfortunately, the character wasn't quite ready for primetime and could only tell a sliver of the story that made the character so compelling in the comic books. Of course, the comics had almost 40 years to tell their story while Daredevil only had a matter of hours. It wasn't the movie's fault, but director Mark Steven Johnson - whose only great cinematic output seems to have been the Grumpy Old Men movies - either made numerous poor choices or towed the studio's company line in making Daredevil. Knowing what I know of his subsequent films, including Elektra, Jack Frost, the Ghost Rider movies and When in Rome, I'm tempted to think that if it's not the former by itself, it's a combination with the latter. Breaking Away has the feel-good win of this one-sided race.