Daredevil is Fox's latest attempt to cash-in on the current comic-book film craze, though was greeted with scathing reviews; I must admit I've never even heard of a comic-book called Daredevil (nor most of the film's cast or its director, Mark Steven Johnson). Johnson was clearly an admirer of Danny Elfman's wonderful Spiderman score and so instructed his composer to ape it as closely as possible; unfortunately, his composer was Graeme Revell, so what could have been a moderately enjoyable copy turns out to be rather less pleasing.

The two obvious Spiderman copies are the opening "Daredevil Theme" and then "Matt Becomes Daredevil", a clone of Elfman's "Costume Montage". Unfortunately in terms of melody, orchestration and the combination of a symphony orchestra with guitars and electronics, Revell is light-years behind his considerably more illustrious colleague. Elfman's incorporation of synths into the orchestral palette was a masterstroke, putting to shame virtually every other film composer who has tried to do something similar; Revell's is as bad as I can remember. But worst of all, I guess, are Revell's attempts at villain music; the first is the most disastrous, with "The Kingpin" being a piece of industrial electronica that will turn off all but the deafest of listeners. "Bullseye" is even worse, just a mass of noise that could have been written by someone pressing random buttons on a keyboard.

There is one saving grace, though, and that's the surprisingly tender music that crops up once in a while. "Young Matt's Father" may be a Thomas Newman rip-off (every score's gotta have one!) but it's still nice; and "Elektra" is a Graeme Revell piece-with-a-melody. No, I'm not kidding. Not a great melody I grant you, but the arrangement is lovely at least, especially the surprising inclusion of a female vocalist towards the end. (Unfortunately it's followed by a bit of dreadful action music, more noise, which quickly erases the memory.)

If you want a fifth-rate Spiderman rip-off, be my guest. Otherwise, steer well clear. A few minutes aside, this is film music to turn you off film music.

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