Editor’s Note: Spoilers ahead for Daredevil: Born Again
With Daredevil (Charlie Cox) coming to the MCU, there are potentially huge upsides and also huge risks. But both come from the added budget that Marvel will be willing to give to this Disney+ show that is fully canonical versus a Netflix show that was somewhat in-universe. Many fans were excited about this budgetary increase, and, understandably, they would be as there is more scope for bringing back actors such as Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher (Jon Bernthal), as salaries become less of an issue. Furthermore, while the action in Daredevil was beloved, surely more money can only be a good thing, right? Undoubtedly, it should provide the creatives with more freedom to craft action scenes that simply could not be done on Netflix.
However, sadly, in the opening episode of Daredevil: Born Again, “Heaven’s Half Hour,” we saw how this budget is not helping the show, but so far, actively hurting it. Rather than keeping the grounded and gritty action and enhancing the scale and perspective, we can get on these fights, the increased use of CGI is actively taking Daredevil away from the realism people loved before. Furthermore, there is a clear issue with how CGI is being used to develop the narrative itself, as it is making the symbolism on display far more obvious than it needs to be.
Daredevil’s Punching and Swinging Lacks the Weight It Should Have
When Foggy (Elden Henson) is shot, we see Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) walking up to Karen (Deborah Ann Hill) to shoot her before Daredevil swings in and tackles the psychopathic villain through the glass of Josie’s (Susan Varon) bar, the promise of an instant classic fight felt near guaranteed. However, much of the fight lacks the same impact we saw in the Netflix show. When we saw the iconic hallways fight in Daredevil Season 1, Episode 2, “Cut Man,” every strike felt real, as there was a real effort to keep either Cox or his stunt double on screen as much as possible, so that we felt a physical reference to the fight.
When we look at the fight we got in Born Again, rather than stunt doubles/actors being used, we are given CGI doubles of Matt swinging on the rooftop, looking closer to Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man than Daredevil. Subsequently, when he punches Bullseye on the roof, it looks like a video game as his movements have a certain weightlessness to them. He can use his baton to traverse the city, and he is athletic, so he should move faster than the average individual, but to glide through the air like he is superpowered takes away from some of the vulnerability we love about Daredevil.
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It’s a similar issue I have with Wolverine from the comics. Similar to Daredevil, neither are the strongest, fastest, nor smartest compared to other beings in the Marvel universe, but it is their ability to take pain and keep moving forward that makes them interesting. Yet they are boosted in their power set to the point where Daredevil can move unnaturally, and Wolverine can be reduced to a single atom and survive. The biggest worry is that it feels like Marvel is upgrading Daredevil’s power scale so that he can co-exist with other more powerful and less grounded heroes and villains of the MCU.
Bullseye’s Weapons Are Stripped of Personality and Realism in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’
This feeling of weightless CGI and lack of realism is also shown in the objects Bullseye throws. During their fight in Daredevil, Season 3, Episode 6, “The Devil You Know,” Bullseye is given a focus on the weapons he uses to throw at Matt as he picks up different office supplies, which gives us something tangible that we have felt in our own hands. Instead, Born Again has Bullseye fling an unlimited number of daggers, which are so obviously CGI, that they become comical. With the knives jutting out of Matt, it looks like a gag about plot armor and the fact the daggers aren’t real, rather than a brutal battle being waged. We do see Bullseye use billiard balls to knock people out, but the camera constantly moving away from the action, quite literally, pulls us out of the impact and makes it harder to track the flight of the ball, further emphasizing the fact that these are not real objects.
Marvel’s Increased Use of CGI Is for Obligatory Symbolism in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’
Perhaps the worst moment of this fight comes after the best bit. After a truly brutal and cold move of Matt throwing Bullseye off the roof, pulling its frame to show a wide shot of his body hitting the ground with a bounce, Matt let his damaged helmet fall to the ground. The shot of the helmet falling stands in such contrast to Bullseye’s descent because of the use of CGI. The obligatory symbolism and high-definition would work for a poster or trailer, where you are trying to capture a vibe more than what the show will portray but to include it after a moment of realism is thoroughly distracting and removes us from the emotional devastation of Matt losing Foggy.
This isn’t to say the entire show is a failure or that there will be no good action scenes. Even the second episode, “Optics,” shows us a much better fight between Matt and the corrupt cops who try to kill him. I’d argue this is because no CGI doubles are being used, just creative and bloody choreography. Still, it cannot be ignored that the fight between Daredevil and Bullseye was a poor use of CGI and an example of the bad that can come from an increased budget. Many of the movements of Daredevil and Bullseye felt distant from the previous fights we had seen from both of them, and there was some obligatory symbolism that did not help the narrative at all. Currently, in the form it is in now, it feels like the studio is more focused on the “super” aspects of the show rather than the “hero” elements as Netflix did.
New episodes of Daredevil: Born Again are released weekly on Disney+.
Daredevil: Born Again
- Release Date
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March 4, 2025
- Showrunner
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Chris Ord
- Writers
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Chris Ord
- Franchise(s)
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Daredevil, Marvel Cinematic Universe
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