Frank Miller is God. Okay, maybe not. But when God hears Miller’s name, He pisses His pants and asks, “He’s not here, is he?”
So, when Trekhead and I went to see Daredevil last night, and the Elektra/Bullseye fight came up, I knew I was either gonna get sold, or I was gonna get up and walk. The movie had been uninspiring up to that moment. There were a couple of good things, but the voice-over was terrible, the fight scenes ill-lit and poorly edited, and the dialogue generally drab.
But here it is. Electra vs. Bullseye.
As a comic book reader, nothing hit me like that scene. Nothing. Not Jean Gray, not Jason Todd, not Gwen Stacey. Nothing.
The scene begins. And it isn’t like the other fight scenes. There’s no wire work. It’s short. It’s brutal. Miller’s scene comes to mind. In the comic world, where all my friends were reading X-Men, reading Claremont’s fancy girly soap opera plots and Byrne’s picture perfect pencils, everything was beautiful and perfect. Frank Miller’s art was blocky and ugly. His dialogue wasn’t off the TV, it was off the street. The movie I was watching suddenly changed. Transformed before my eyes. No wires. No CGI. Blood. Lots of blood.
I can feel the scene. I feel the energy of it building in my gut. I feel the audience around me, a quiet disconcerting energy. Something’s wrong, and they know it.
And then — Electra’s down. Hard. Pushing herself back up through the pain. And Bullseye’s right there. “You’re good, babe,” he says.
And I’m sitting right next to Trekhead, saying the words as Bullseye does.
“But me? I’m magic.”
The next ten seconds hurt. So much, the girl sitting right behind me, who’s been kicking my chair and chatting with her friend all through the movie, she’s dead silent and still in her chair. She can’t move. I can hear her breath. And when the moment comes, she gasps, just like the rest of the audience. Disbelief. Pain. Catharsis.
The scene is awful. Pitiful. Powerful. Just two minutes, and those two minutes were pulled straight from Miller’s pen. They are the most powerful two minutes I’ve seen in a “comic book film.” I didn’t feel it when Peter’s Uncle Ben died. I didn’t feel it at all in X-Men. From what I’ve seen, I don’t want to see The Hulk.
But Electra died. And the people around me felt it. So did I. The second time.
And it still hurt. Like a sai through the heart.