Elektra is out now on DVD in the US with a UK release in May
Elektra leaps from the comic book pages to the screen, although not too gracefully, in a movie that delivers lots of action and special effects, but little quality. The problem isn’t that the movie, which is a spin-off from 2003’s horrible Daredevil adaptation, doesn’t have a plot, but that it has too many plots.
Since Elektra didn’t need to be an origin story, again thanks to Daredevil, the writers needed to come up with a good solid plot for the character that was worthy of giving the deadly female her own film.
Instead, it seems the writers came up with several mediocre plots and forced them into one movie. While this multi-plot film works for movies like Pulp Fiction, it fails miserably in Elektra leaving you feeling like you are watching a movie that no one knew what to do with, but had to make because the paychecks had already been written.
Jennifer Garner returns to the role of Elektra who has been brought back from the dead and become an assassin who kills without mercy or remorse. Trained by a mentor named Stick, played by Terence Stamp, Elektra is in the “dark” period of her life, but soon redeems herself when she decides to help a father and daughter rather than kill them. The rest of the movie has her on the run and fighting an endless supply of ninjas and weird “demon” like killers who work for the evil organization known as the Hand.
Now, both the Hand and Stick are also character’s from the comics, but they prove sometimes what works on the comic page doesn’t translate on the screen. Elektra soon finds that the girl she is protecting is actually a pretty good fighter and that she is facing the man that holds the key to her past. That story is at least one of the plots.
Other plots of the movie include Elektra falling in love with the girl’s father -Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic), having to deal with the tragedies of her past - which sort of retells the origin story that was told in Daredevil, and seeking revenge on the man who killed her mother. Again, all this is shoved into a one-hour-and-thirty-minute movie and none really gel well together. This leaves the movie, which could have been halfway decent or at least better than Daredevil, weak and without any kind of focus.
Other problems in the movie include the main group of assassins sent to kill Elektra and the girl. They all possess some kind of “demon” power that are cool to watch, but never explained. These villains include Typhoid Mary - another character from the comic pages of Daredevil, a large man named Stone - whose skin is so strong that bullets bounce off but trees can kill, Tattoo – not from Fantasy Island, but a killer who has the ability to bring the animals tattooed on his body to life, and Kirigi – the leader of the group who is a ninja like with some extra powers. I guess the writers needed to have these special assassins as a way to balance out the fact that Elektra is so skilled at killing that she can wipe out an army of security guards without batting an eyelash.
While the villains of the movie are weak and almost throwbacks to when Hollywood was cranking out bad comic adaptations, the fight scenes are pretty fun to watch and visually amazing. Not quite a classic Kung Fu movie from the 70’s, Elektra does deliver in lots of ninjas with swords, martial arts, and high wire action. If that is your cup of tea, the Elektra will leave you with a smile on your face.<!--page-->
Jennifer Garner returns to the role of Elektra
The special features include three deleted scenes, a making of feature with interviews from the cast and director, an “inside the editing room” feature, Jennifer Garner’s Comic-Con presentation, and previews for the upcoming Fantastic Four.Garner’s Comic-Con presentation is basically just a preview for the movie where she gushes about how much she loves the character and how comic fans of the character won’t be disappointed by the movie. That statement is kind of laughable because I can’t imagine a fan of the comic liking the movie.
The deleted scenes don’t really add much to the movie except for the Daredevil cameo. In one of the deleted scenes, Elektra dreams of Matt Murdock (again played by the great and talented Ben Affleck –yeah right) asking her to come back to him. Supposedly, the studio cut the scene for fear of another “Ben and Jen” backlash after it came out that the two actors were a couple. Maybe they just saw how well received audiences were to Affleck’s Daredevil and didn’t want to hurt the movie any more than it was going to hurt itself.
Overall, the movie is not a total waste if you like far fetched comic movies that don’t have much to offer. It does have some pretty good fight scenes and visual effects. It just fails to offer anything else worth mentioning. Garner might as well be playing the Alias role that made her a star, and the movie should have just stayed in script stage until they could come up with something better to bring to the screen.
There is still one positive thing that can be said about Elektra – as bad as it was, Elektra is still tons better than Catwoman.
Elektra is out now on DVD in the US and available via Amazon . UK readers will have to wait until May 30 but can pre-order at Amazon UK .
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