Buy it... only if you are a fanatic collector of the Daredevil concept and appreciate even the least engaging variants on the superhero film music formula.

Avoid it... if you prefer your superhero scores to feature a memorable, superior theme and interesting, sustained action cues.

Revell

Daredevil: (Graeme Revell) The public's desire for supernatural heroes once again guided studios in the early 2000's. After Batman, The Shadow, and The Phantom breezed through theaters in the previous decade, the comic-to-screen stars of the early 21st Century included a resurgent Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and then Daredevil, a hero with the twist of having a disability in his real life guise. Adapted from Marvel Comics' long-running concept, Mark Steven Johnson's vision of Daredevil failed to gain the illustrious following of the kind that Spider-Man and X-Men have both experienced, thus causing whatever initial indication of a franchise to fizzle quickly. It did allow for Jennifer Garner's character of Elektra Natchios to be spun off into her own feature film, not to mention a tabloid press following in relation to her attachment to Daredevil's title actor, Ben Affleck. The composers of the music for these comic book superheroes have rotated between many of the top names in the industry, often producing at least average, if not enjoyable scores for these films. Graeme Revell was perhaps the most widely seasoned composer to tackle this genre in the time just preceding 2003, having composed for action and adventure films in a wide range of instrumental and electric sounds. He is an unpredictable composer, sometimes bordering on the verge of brilliance and at other times performing a balancing act between the downright strange and the completely unlistenable. Like other films of the genre that came before, Daredevil would fit a certain formula that composers typically try to adhere to, and Revell followed those lines to an extent. The challenge with superhero scores is to follow that formula without making the music into a series of cliches that could damage the film. Conversely, scores that try to be too stylish, in essence an attempt to reinvent the genre in a more contemporary fashion, can be problematic as well. The latter is an affliction that Revell suffers in Daredevil, striving for a postmodern kind of superhero score that fails to really extend the genre in an effective new direction while also, unfortunately, losing some of that good old fashioned dramatic appeal along the way.

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Revell did manage to avoid producing a score constrained by the genre's cliches for Daredevil. On the other hand, he didn't follow the superhero formula with enough consistency to make the score the least bit memorable, either. He attempts to infuse the score with a dynamically ranging title theme, moving in two-note strides that could almost represent the leaps from one tall building to another. Unfortunately, the theme is too long and drawn out in its construction to be adapted easily into action cues throughout the work, causing only three prominent performances of that theme ("Daredevil Theme," "Matt Becomes Daredevil," and partially in "The Necklace"). So anonymous is its construct that you won't be able to hum this action hero theme after the score is over. One predictable avenue explored by Revell is the translation of the theme into a rhythmically cool electric guitar performance in "Matt Becomes Daredevil," taking a page from the methodology of Danny Elfman's Spider-Man. The fight sequences in Daredevil are scored with unorganized orchestral blasts, often in disjointed key and never lasting long enough to build into a listenable experience on album. In "Kingpin" and "Bullseye," Revell stretches the instrumentation into the percussively bizarre, making the villain and his thugs neither scary nor sophisticated. Ironically, for an action film, the highlight of Revell's work for Daredevil is the reflective portion of the underscore. For Matt, this entails floating female vocal solos over a deep, male choral background and subtle, sensitive guitar and piano work for Elektra. The more mystical sequences feature this solid music, and might, for fans of the Daredevil concept, save the album. Absent, however, is the kick-butt action material that you need to hear in scores such as this. Revell employs a large ensemble for the project, including a massive French horn section, as well as the voices and an electric guitar for effect, but that sizeable group never unleashes much harmonic or, for that matter, coordinated force. Ultimately, therefore, this is a score that attempts to rely upon its textures to suffice, and with a bland employment and mixture of its ingredients, the recipe will be a disappointment for most listeners. For collectors of Revell's music, this work is certainly better than his Tomb Raider debacle, but it resides without distinction at the less interesting end of the superhero film music scale. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Graeme Revell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.74 (in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.74 (in 15,157 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.