TAGGED AS: Action, streaming, TV
It’s worked for so many other shows, now it’s Marvel’s time for a TV series revival. Ten years after Charlie Cox first suited up as the “Man Without Fear” in Netflix’s eponymous program, the actor is back in the role for Daredevil: Born Again, this time on Disney+. Reviews of the continuation are mostly approving of Daredevil’s action-packed return, though whether it’s better or worse than the previous incarnation is up for debate.
Here’s what critics are saying about Daredevil: Born Again:
The revival series blows every expectation out of the water.
— Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
It is exactly what fans have been wanting and it is well worth the wait.
— Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
From the first seconds of its first episode, watching Daredevil: Born Again feels like coming home… The mix of superhero story and legal drama remains a winning formula.
— Ross McIndoe, Slant Magazine
Born Again’s most important achievement is the canny way it continues everything that worked about the original Daredevil series, with some notable improvements across the board elsewhere.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
Daredevil: Born Again rises above… With a cast entirely at ease in their characters’ skins, and a darker tone, the series is a breathtaking example of what it means to revisit a known hero while offering him new reasons to fight for justice.
— Aramide Tinubu, Variety
The same adherence to formula that makes Born Again so satisfying at its best is also what ultimately keeps it feeling trapped in amber.
— Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter
It almost feels like the series is purposefully courting the average. It is a “good enough” copy of what was originally stunning.
— Kelly Lawler, USA Today
It doesn’t take long for the promising revival to crumble once more into another incoherent mess of IP management.
— Nicholas Quah, New York Magazine/Vulture
The best MCU Disney+ show yet.
— Jacob Fisher, Discussing Film
For my tastes, Daredevil: Born Again is the best television show Marvel Studios has made.
— Julian Lytle, The Beat
Easily the MCU’s darkest and most twisted adventure… Its best yet!
— Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
Not just the best MCU series but the best comic book TV show ever made.
— Josh Wilding, ComicBookMovie.com
This Daredevil revival is wonderfully complex. The show takes a sledgehammer to its former Netflix world, allowing the titular character and those orbiting him to transform under the weight and pain of time.
— Aramide Tinubu, Variety
It retains everything that made Daredevil so beloved and, fortunately, drops what didn’t.
— Josh Wilding, ComicBookMovie.com
There’s a consistency of tone and style throughout that evokes what made those Netflix-based series such an exciting addition to the Marvel universe.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
This version is just as good, if not better, than the previous series.
— Allison Rose, FlickDirect
It genuinely makes the Netflix series look tame in comparison.
— Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
Daredevil: Born Again seems a smidge less dark and violent.
— Bob Strauss, The Wrap
These nine episodes of Daredevil: Born Again contain fewer of the athletic combat sequences that defined the original series.
— Melanie McFarland, Salon.com
While it looks and smells the same as the old Daredevil, it doesn’t feel quite as ambitious and exciting. It’s a very good copy, but the creativity and exhilaration were lost in the reach for fidelity.
— Kelly Lawler, USA Today
When watching this season, I felt energized by storytelling and it gave me some of the same feeling I got from watching The Penguin.
— Julian Lytle, The Beat
I’d actually rate it higher than last year’s much-lauded Batman spin-off The Penguin, which was never as smart or sophisticated as it wanted to be.
— Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, TV Guide
We should be asking more of Marvel’s television endeavors. We live in a world where HBO’s Watchmen exists, and we’re still rolling off a year that gave us The Penguin, which is just about the best possible outcome for a corporate mandate to make lemonade out of intellectual-property lemons.
— Nicholas Quah, New York Magazine/Vulture
While Kingpin’s Born Again storyline was initially set up in the post-credits scene for 2024’s Echo, it’s not essential to watch that series, at least.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
Newcomers to Daredevil needn’t subject themselves to [Echo] if they don’t want to, although it’s probably worth taking in the 2015 first season of Daredevil as a matter of tracking the story’s evolution.
— Melanie McFarland, Salon.com
No, you don’t have to rewatch the original Daredevil before diving into this one.
— Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter
Daredevil: Born Again is exactly the kind of storytelling the MCU has been missing — gritty, violent, and character-driven.
— Emmanuel Noisette, The Movie Blog
It tells arguably one of the most compelling stories we’ve seen in the MCU to date.
— Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
Born Again simply tells its story, episode by episode, building clearly from one chapter to the next.
— Ross McIndoe, Slant Magazine
Daredevil: Born Again juggles multiple subplots but virtually all of them are Daredevil-lite and dull, not to mention semi-connected; there’s a herky-jerky quality to the material that seems like a result of the series being overhauled mid-production.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Born Again also does a vastly better job than most recent MCU properties of connecting with other parts of that universe, with cameos from and references to other series that always feel organic and unobtrusive.
— Ross McIndoe, Slant Magazine
The relatively focused storytelling means that a small-scale crossover like Matt’s one-off adventure with a minor Ms. Marvel character lands as a reminder of how expansive this cinematic universe can be, not how oppressively interconnected it’s become.
— Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter
An episode in which Matt deals with a bank robbery alongside Ms. Marvel’s dad Yusuf Khan is both a stand-alone season padder and a lame pseudo-crossover event.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Just when you thought it wouldn’t adhere to that default need to service the broader cinematic universe, a mid-season suitcase episode features a bank heist and a secondary character whose primary function is to remind you that you’re watching one tiny morsel of a larger story.
— Nicholas Quah, New York Magazine/Vulture
This is a TV-MA show, with graphic language and often grisly violence. So the occasional crossovers with, or even references to, the more all-ages shows elsewhere on Disney+, creates some tonal dissonance.
— Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone
Any worries that the move from Netflix to Disney+ would mean the show is less violent quickly prove unfounded. The fights are just as bone-breakingly brutal and bloody as we’ve come to expect, with choreography that incorporates Daredevil’s signature billy club in creative ways.
— Amon Warmann, Empire Magazine
In terms of action, they’ve upped the ante tenfold, simultaneously increasingly the brutality while making every look and feel a lot more comic book-y. The fights are actually so visceral this time around that you can sometimes almost feel the punches in your gut as they’re being thrown on screen.
— Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
The fight scenes in Daredevil: Born Again are brutal in the best way possible. Every punch lands with weight, every battle feels earned, and the choreography is top-tier. The cinematography takes it to another level, with seamless long takes that throw you right into the action.
— Emmanuel Noisette, The Movie Blog
Those watching to enjoy fresh versions of bone-cracking fights and flying bullets may be left impatient by Scardapane’s emphasis on moral quandaries and tangles over tussles, especially when it comes to Matt’s personal life.
— Melanie McFarland, Salon.com
There are fight sequences, but aside from the opening throwdown that kicks off Born Again, they are nowhere as interesting as the original, and they certainly do not advance character.
— Nicholas Quah, New York Magazine/Vulture
The action’s not that great… The fights in Born Again are very inconsistent.
— Charlie Ridgely, ComicBook.com
The final few episodes are far and away the strongest of the season. By the time you get through the finale, it’s easier to forgive some of the season’s earlier transgressions.
— Charlie Ridgely, ComicBook.com
It’s not until its final episode that the series hits its stride, having its main players embrace their true natures and get down to the very sort of grungy, gruesome business that is their calling card.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
He’s always been an absolute phenom in this role, but Born Again finally gives him the proper room to shine, as both Matt Murdock and as Daredevil… This is easily his finest hour yet.
— Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
Charlie Cox [is] at his ferocious best.
— M.N. Miller, Geek Vibes Nation
Charlie Cox is again impressive, in a low-key everyman kind of way.
— Keith Watson, Daily Telegraph
His performance, and the writing that helps bring out the best of it, is the foundation for the entire series, and Cox shoulders that burden as deftly as his character arcs across the city skyline.
— Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter
We get to see Matt Murdock really live his life here — flirt with a woman, negotiate with a prosecutor, bond with an old friend — in ways that unlock Charlie Cox’s remarkable charisma, on a level beyond what the original Daredevil was able to manage.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
It’s Vincent D’Onofrio, channeling late period Marlon Brando with a smidgeon of Silence of the Lambs Anthony Hopkins, who keeps the tension dialed up to the max.
— Keith Watson, Daily Telegraph
[D’Onofrio] is the main reason to watch. Already masterwork in balancing gentility with explosive rage, the actor blends the spark of a political mover with the oleaginous menace of a mob boss.
— Melanie McFarland, Salon.com
His brute-aesthete act may not be dramatically different than it was ten years ago, but it’s still reliably magnetic; in his hands, a gesture as ordinary as digging into a plate of sole meunière can seem freighted with latent power.
— Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter
His portrayal of the Kingpin is now arguably the most terrifying villain in all of the MCU.
— Jacob Fisher, Discussing Film
The biggest letdown? We barely see Daredevil in costume. Across nine episodes, Matt suits up maybe a handful of times. While the story makes sense of it, it still felt like a missed opportunity.
— Emmanuel Noisette, The Movie Blog
If we had to levy any criticisms, there may be a character or two that feels a little superfluous.
— Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
If I was to have one small issue with this series, it is the CGI in some of these scenes and in scenes where Matt is exploring the city.
— Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
Marvel finally got it right with Daredevil: Born Again. Now, let’s just hope they keep this momentum going.
— Emmanuel Noisette, The Movie Blog
Much of Born Again’s storyline feels familiar, but the climax that it builds to offers an exciting foundation for the next season.
— Ross McIndoe, Slant Magazine
A cliffhanger that teases a more fulfilling battle to come fails to excite—and is certainly not worth sitting through the nine hours that precede it.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Daredevil: Born Again: Season 1 premiered on Disney+ on March 4, 2025.
