Disregard the almost universal critical panning Mark Steven Johnson's big-screen adaptation of Stan Lee's blind comic-book hero received at the hands of US reviewers - while no great shakes and a very blatant attempt at a controlled-budget knock-off of "Spider-Man", this is in fact a pretty honest and technically well done film version. The first half hour is mainly exposition, taking neophytes through their paces as we learn how the son of an Hell's Kitchen boxer, blinded in a freak toxic waste accident, compensates for his loss with an acute development of the other four senses and grows up to become a high-minded lawyer with a nights-only sideline as a vigilante prowling the streets to serve justice on those who elude the law. Good exposition it is as well, effortlessly making the hero credible and setting him in a credible world. At some point, however, it all falls into comic-book unreality as expected, but taking itself so much more seriously than it should that you're aching for the action setpieces to come up. The film's basic claims to greatness lie in its clever visualization of the hero's blindness - "seeing" the objects through X-ray-like soundwaves - and in Colin Farrell's out-of-control cameo as the psychotic assassin Bullseye; everything else is routine comic-book action, effectively filmed.
