Elektra
(FOX)
(2005)
review by Head Cheeze

I’m one of the five or six people who liked 2003’s movie adaptation of Daredevil. I found Ben Affleck to be a likeable superhero, and was also pleased with the chemistry between he and co-star Jennifer Garner, who played love interest/lethal ninja, Elektra Natchios. In that film, Elektra “dies” at the hand of another assassin, but the movie ends with a glimmer of hope that, one day, Elektra would return.

And return she does as the titular hero in Rob Bowman’s Elektra, yet another woefully inept attempt to bring a female comic book heroine to the big screen.

The film opens with a conversation between a bodyguard, and his boss, DeMarco (Jason Isaacs in a cameo), in which the two talk about an assassin that’s been hired to kill him. They chat about her bad ass reputation, her key role in some supernatural struggle between good and evil (yawn), and how she was brought back to life by a blind martial arts guru named Stick (Stamp). Elektra then slinks on in and kills them both, rudely not even bothering to thank DeMarco for conveniently encapsulating her origins for the audience.

We are then given a quick visual rundown of where Elektra’s been with training montages set to estrogen infused nu-metal, alternating with glimpses of Elektra’s tortured past. We see how the stresses of being raised by perfectionist parents and her gawky and abusive teen years have lead to the character developing a wicked case of O.C.D. This is all could have been very interesting, showing us the flawed human within the hero, yet it’s ultimately a pointless plot device to attempt to give the underwritten character some depth by showing us she’s got flaws just like us real folk. The disease has no effect on her fighting ability, but, then again, with the choppy and chaotic way in which these scenes were edited, it would have probably made more sense to have given her attention deficit disorder instead.

Elektra is given her next assignment, which is to take out Mark Miller (Visnjic) and his young daughter Abby (Prout), who also has some sort of foreseen role in the same struggle between good and evil that Elektra factors into. Of course, Elektra can’t bring herself to make the hit, and opts instead to protect Mark and Abby from and the mysterious shadow agency, The Order of the Hand, whose henchmen are a bunch of supernatural ninja types who burst into a cloud of smoke when they die. This effect is very convenient, as Elektra, the warrior, can slice her way through dozens of opponents without spilling a drop of blood so that Elektra, the film, can maintain its PG-13 rating.

Elektra isn’t all bad. The maternal bond between Garner and Prout is palpable, the cinematography is oftentimes quite beautiful, and the special effects look great, even if, in context, it’s all a bit silly. I guess my main problem with the film is Garner herself, who just doesn’t seem comfortable here. So good as super secret agent Sidney Bristow in TV’s Alias, Garner simply seems to be sleepwalking her way through the film, with a scowl that’s supposed to look fearsome, but, instead, comes off more like a pouting supermodel whose left her new Dooney and Burke handbag in the back of a Manhattan Yellow cab. She barks commands and combative trash talk with all of the ferocity of a slightly peeved Betty Boop, and clumsily fumbles her way through the carefully choreographed fight scenes as though she were picked out of the audience for a public stick fighting demonstration. Of course, were Garner given more to do than simply stand around looking “broody” in between fights, perhaps she’d have found the right tone for her character. Instead, Elektra wastes most of its short running time showing the title character and her new charges running around in the wilds of British Columbia, carving their way through enemies that drop from the skies with the frequency of ninjas in a Godfrey Ho movie.

In the end, Elektra just doesn’t cut it when compared to superhero faire like the excellent Spider-Man series, or even the Daredevil film from which the character was spun off from. Could it be a product of Rob Bowman’s hyperactive direction, or the disorienting hatchet job that was done in the editing room? Maybe it’s the fact that the film never takes the time to develop a single character with whom we can identify with, let alone care about? Who knows?

The bottom line is that for a movie based on one of Marvel Comics most electrifying characters, this Elektra barely manages a spark.