“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” says Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck), also known as Daredevil. But Father Everett, a sympathetic priest who knows Matt's secret, chides him, “You don't come to me for forgiveness, you come to me for permission — and I can't give you that.” In spite of this, eventually the priest reluctantly gives Matt absolution, but not without a parting shot: “And I don't like the costume!”

Despite the horns he wears, Matt Murdock tries to be on the side of the angels. In childhood, an accidental shower of mysterious chemicals blinded him but heightened his remaining senses to superhuman acuity and gifted him with a unique “radar sense.” Writer-director and long-time comic-book fan Mark Steven Johnson successfully conveys the experience of super powers and Daredevil's perception of the world to the audience — especially the radar sense effect, which can be strikingly beautiful.

Johnson is less successful at opening the mind or the heart of the character, who remains as inaccessible as the Bruce Wayne of the Batman movies, in contrast to the more human heroes of Spider-Man and XMen. More seriously, Johnson compromises the character's moral center: This Daredevil chases and fights a bad guy onto train tracks and then lets him get run over — something his comic-book counterpart would never have done.

As this suggests, the violence in the film can get rough — sometimes unnecessarily so — and the line between justice and vengeance isn't as clear as the movie itself would like it to be. Given the violence, and a sexual encounter between the hero and his girlfriend, Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner), this is one comic-book movie that's decidedly inappropriate for young viewers.

Despite these drawbacks, adults who grew up reading the original comic-book stories will find Daredevil a triumph of movie adaptation and well-conceived effects over weak characterization and uninspired casting. As to how casual viewers will feel about it — I have to admit I probably have too many Daredevil comic books in my closet to be a reliable judge of that.

— S.G.