Daredevil: Born Again season 1 review: "There have been far worse Marvel projects, but few as disappointing as this"

There have been far worse Marvel projects, but few as disappointing as Daredevil: Born Again.

Heralded as the return of Charlie Cox's "really good lawyer" Matt Murdock, Born Again immediately introduces a major paradigm shift that sees The Man Without Fear – once more flanked by Foggy Nelson (Elden Hanson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) – hanging up his mask and billy clubs after a traumatic event.

Instead of jolting Daredevil back into life after years in the wilderness, the retirement turns its first MCU series into a plodding, low-energy affair – one that, crucially, cuts out the warmth, hard-hitting action, and deep characterization that made the show's first three seasons on Netflix a success.

What follows is Matt largely consigned to detective work at his new firm Murdock and McDuffie and a series of rushed mini-arcs. First, the return of Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) and the trial of vigilante White Tiger (the late Kamar de los Reyes), followed by dealing with everything from corrupt cops sporting Punisher tattoos to an artistically-inclined serial killer – all surrounded by the intriguing setup of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his ascension to becoming mayor of New York.

But it doesn't take Matt's heightened senses to know that Born Again speeding through a series of half-baked storylines and taking five or six episodes for Daredevil to do Daredevil things (and even properly wear the suit) is a bad idea.

Original sin

Before we dive in any further, it's worth taking stock of just how Born Again was revived. Infamously, Marvel Studios removed head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman, as well as its original team of directors. In their place, Dario Scardapane (The Punisher) was parachuted in as showrunner to rescue the project, with Moon Knight's Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead brought onboard to direct.

That shock treatment may have cured some of what ails Born Again (most notably in its pulsating first 15 minutes and a cathartic finale that sets the stage for a second season), but it can't ever move away from the show's original desire to start afresh. This is a noticeably Frankensteined project that is impossible to divorce from its original vision, an awkward patchwork of occasionally good repairs stapled over the top of a pretty bad series.

Case in point: it becomes abundantly clear that Karen and Foggy were never meant to be part of Born Again, instead only showing up for a fraction of the nine-episode season.

Their presence, though, only serves as a reminder of its far better, more substantial Netflix series packed with bone-crunching fight scenes, nuanced heroes, and compelling legal drama. At least we have a Feige to thank for at least one of those things still holding up – writer David Feige (no relation to Kevin) makes Born Again's courtroom scenes weighty and authentic thanks to his history as a public defender and work on 2000s series Raising the Bar.

Thankfully, Daredevil: Born Again isn't a complete disaster. Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio once again provide strong, load-bearing performances to avoid the show from crumbling any further. A sitdown premiere conversation between the two – first framed as old pals reconnecting before Matt pokes the bear and Fisk's anger gets the better of him – is a true highlight.

Cox also proves more than capable of carrying entire episodes by himself, as is the case with a standalone entry at the show's midpoint that sees the blind lawyer, shorn of his Daredevil gear, trying to navigate the perils of being a hostage in a bank robbery gone very, very wrong. It resembles an incredibly strong single comic issue, though ironically would have worked better in one of Netflix's stretched-out 13 episode seasons.

Other glimpses of quality, while mostly flanderized versions of their Netflix counterparts, offer just enough to keep watching. Kingpin's mayoral duties – which take up a surprising amount of narrative real estate – and Jon Bernthal's show-stealing scenes as The Punisher are high quality and make you wonder why it couldn't all be like this.

There's also a surprisingly cynical, refreshing worldview that is novel to the MCU: that of how cops, corrupt officials, and vigilantes are by-products of a broken city. It may seem like a broad canvas on which to paint, but then similar issues rear their ugly head as the brushstrokes of Born Again's clunky script and surprisingly straightforward narrative fail to do it justice.

Paint by numbers

Speaking of artistry, New York is also plagued by sinister murals, the work of Born Again's big new antagonist, Muse. Unfortunately for those hoping for an adaptation of one of Marvel's better modern comic villains, he is one of Born Again's towering disappointments. Frequently losing the upper hand and only given one episode to really take the spotlight, Muse should have painted the town red – but feels far more paint-by-numbers.

Other newcomers range from the forgettable (Matt's therapist love interest Heather Glenn, played by Margarita Levieva) to the underutilized (Michael Gandolfini's Daniel Blake worms his way into Fisk's affections to great effect). The B.B. Report, a man-on-the-street segment fronted by B.B. Urich (Genneya Walton) is the worst offender, constantly interrupting the opening half of the Disney Plus series with lashings of exposition to literally tell the viewer how they should be expected to feel about what's going on.

Of course, long-time fans are going to come into this wondering how it compares to the iconic Netflix series in terms of its mano-a-mano sequences. Frustratingly, despite the best efforts of stunt coordinator Phil Silvera, the fight scenes pale in comparison, either too muddy or set up with some inexcusably bad CGI. There's certainly nothing here to make you sit up and take notice like the first season's corridor fight scene, a white whale the show has been chasing ever since. When a Daredevil show pulls its punches, you know it's in trouble.

And that really is the issue with Daredevil: Born Again. There's just too little of what you're here for. There's nothing wrong with subverting expectations – as long as it's in moderation. This is a Daredevil show that's playing dress-up and cosplaying as the far superior Netflix show, its costume too baggy and ill-fitting, with its narrative threads too easy to unpick.

Bizarrely, despite all that, it's easy to walk away from Born Again feeling positive about what's to come in a second season. The creative team that were dropped into an unwinnable situation have certainly shown enough promise in the sections that are unmistakably their work. It just takes nine episodes for the damage control to set in and to get moving towards the show that should have been made in the first place. At least the finale, which might have implications on street-level heroes such as The Defenders and Spider-Man, leaves the series tantalizingly poised for what's to come next.

Daredevil: Born Again should have been Marvel's easiest win. Instead, it's turned into a creative back-and-forth that puts most of its energy into fixing what would have been egregious mistakes – including no ties to the Netflix series and a scattershot narrative that pulls Matt from pillar to post without the excitement of him ever patrolling the streets as Daredevil. Hopefully Born Again gets it right – again – in its second season.

Daredevil: Born Again is now out on Disney Plus, with new episodes airing weekly.

For more, check out the Daredevil: Born Again release schedule and what to watch before Daredevil: Born Again. Then relive the story so far with our Daredevil recap.