| The Cast of Characters: |
 | Elektra (Jennifer Garner). Allegedly a skilled professional assassin. Special trademark move: whispering. |
 | Abby Miller (Kirsten Prout). Lady MacGuffin. Also, Elektra's surrogate daughter/little sister/whatever in the cornier scenes. Almost as forgettable as... |
 | Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic). Abby's parental appendage. Not really Elektra's "love interest" so much as an "acquaintance interest". |
 | Kirigi (Will Yun Lee). The bad guy, or so we're told. No past, no motivation, and no villainous charisma to redeem him. Evil has never been so uninteresting. |
 | Stick (Terence Stamp). Elektra's old sensei. Reminds me a lot of Splinter, even though he has far less charm than an animated rodent. |
 | McCabe (Colin Cunningham). Elektra's manager/agent. Bet you didn't know assassins had agents, did you? A man with flexible morals and a big bank account. Doesn't like killing, but loves the money Elektra brings in. |
 | The Villains (Bob Sapp, Edson T. Ribeiro, Chris Ackerman, Nathassia Malthe). Kirigi's four henchmen. Obviously, they all have other places to be, because they exit the movie as quickly as the plot allows. Calling them "characters" would be like attaching wheels to a wooden plank and calling it a car. |
In the beginning, Sam Raimi made Spider-Man. And the people said unto the comic book publishers: "Give us more, for we..." Oh, you already know everything about the genesis of the modern superhero flick? Fine with me.
That means I can fast forward to 2003's Daredevil. Even though this may put a dent in my reputation, I don't despise that film as much as a lot of other people. Granted, it can't hold a candle to Iron Man, and it isn't even worthy of asking The Dark Knight where the candles are kept, but I find it competent, and mostly fun to watch. Unfortunately, Daredevil is how this movie's Elektra came to be.
Do you remember her in that movie? The rich girl whose daddy was killed by Bullseye? If not, I just told you all you need to know about her basic motivations. At the beginning of Daredevil, she already had some convenient pre-existing martial arts powers, so all it took was a two-minute training sequence to become a vengeful vigilante (an acceptable alliteration, agreed?).
Elektra supposedly died in battle, but Daredevil later discovered that someone left her necklace at his house. And at that exact moment, I felt a cold shudder crawl up my spine, because I knew a spin-off was on the way.
You may notice that in this recap, I won't be saying much about the original Frank Miller version of Elektra. That's because knowing all that backstory won't help you one bit in understanding this film. Basically, the filmmakers took a few sparse bits of Elektra's history, slapped on the wardrobe and the weapons, and called it a day. I'll point out a few of the differences between the comic-version and the movie-version, but anything beyond that would just depress you.
The DVD cover certainly won't make you optimistic. Especially the tagline: "Born to fight. Trained to kill." Written to bore.
Usually, studios can find at least one critic drunk enough to say something vaguely positive and quote-worthy about a film. Not so with Elektra; in the marketing blurb, there's not one mention of a single magazine, newspaper, or website that liked it. (I should note that this only refers to the version of the DVD that I own. I've seen a different release where the Baltimore Sun says, "Garner electrifies!" Well, so does licking a sparkplug, but you wouldn't want to experience that, either.)
And so, the marketing people unfortunately tried to stand on the shoulders of giants with this blurb: "From the makers of X-Men". Really? Let's take a closer look at this, shall we?
So, the director, Rob Bowman... Nope, plenty of work on The X-Files, and equally chilling stuff, but no X-Men. On to the writers: Zak Penn... Yes, he actually worked on the second and third X-Men films. But the other two writers, Raven Metzner and Stu Zicherman, have IMDb profiles that are completely mutant-movie-free.
There's also a writing credit for Mark Stephen Johnson, who wrote and directed Daredevil (not to mention Ghost Rider), for coming up with the characters. But he had nothing to do with any of the X-Men films. (And he probably had nothing to do with this film, other than picking up a check, but that's neither here nor there.)
Okay, so far we've got four writers and one director, and only one person between them who can claim to have worked on an X-Men film. But luckily, two of the nine [!] producers have X-Men movies in their CV. So, it's not often that you can mathematically calculate the truth of a marketing blurb, but here I can say the assertion that Elektra is "from the makers of X-Men" is about 23.1% true.
So I think you can see just how desperate the poor marketing people were to make this movie sound interesting. Let's see what the actual product has to offer.
The opening credits make a point of replacing the Es and As with sigmas and alphas, because Elektra is Greek, get it? (Why does this sound so familiar?) Not that this will ever become important, since she spends all her time hanging with the Asian crowd, but it's nice to be told, right?
And then, in a flash, the credits go from Greece to the Far East, as the background takes on the color of parchment, and inky figures appear. I can't think of anything bad to say about this animation, easily making it the best sequence of the film.
The best sequence of the film.
And then the movie goes and loses all the points it just scored with me by bringing in a narrator. The narration is your basic "Good Has Always Fought Evil"-type speech. The narrator tells us this battle "may be fought on a grand scale. Or within the heart of a single individual. Or even a child." Or using strange grammar. Accordingly, there's animation of a little girl holding a teddy bear.
It's time to introduce the battle's lineup: the evil guys "simply call themselves the Hand". They're the successors of the Foot Clan, no doubt. The forces of good follow the ways of "Kimagure", and are able to see the future and raise the dead. Does this seem like less than a fair fight to anyone else?
But there can be no great wars without a hero, and lo: "A unique warrior. A lost soul. This warrior is a woman." What? The warrior is a woman? Get outta town!
Apparently, this woman is the one who can tip the balance in this conflict, and is therefore sought after by both sides. Because why rely on your own strength when you can just seek out a mystic warrior who may or may not destroy your side, depending on what she decides? It worked out just peachy for the Jedi, I'm told.
But who is this wonderful woman who will bring balance to the F—Sorry, I mean, who will decide the battle of Good vs. Evil?
Oh. There's a surprise.
The title dissolves into snow-like dust, and we fade to... snow. Snow is falling around a manor/castle/generic important building. We see security guards on video screens, as they stare attentively into the night. Inside Castle Exposition, some big shot is sitting in an armchair and telling the head of security that they have no chance of stopping "her" anyway. Way to motivate your employees. But I agree, you don't stand a very good chance of stopping an assassin when you're sitting right by a huge window.
The head of security ponders the word "her" like he's hearing it for the first time. He has no idea what Mr. Big Shot means, so way to thoroughly brief your employees, too.
Mr. Big Shot explains, "I was afraid if I told you, you wouldn't take the job. I never should have hired you."
In the courtyard, Elektra disposes of the first guard. Oops, did I ruin the suspense? Come on, I'm sure you know as well as I do that the figure in the shadows can only be Elektra, right? After all, how many stealthy assassins wear bright red clothes?
I know Elektra's costume is iconic and all, but it's also bloody stupid for this particular mission. And given all the liberties they take with the character later, I refuse to believe they put her in this costume out of respect for the source material.
I spy with my little eye... something...
In voiceover, Mr. Big Shot tells his guard that he's afraid of Elektra, and the hired muscle starts laughing. You see, Elektra is only an urban legend, and she's supposed to be dead, etc. But we all know Rule #1 in superhero movies: All urban legends are completely true. If someone ever mentions to you a mythical killer who's not supposed to exist, run.
Mr. Big Shot is reflecting on how, once upon a time, he made enemies, and hired the best security that money could buy. According to his little tale, Elektra killed them all, but let him go. Meanwhile, we see her coming up the stairs. This is where things should be getting suspenseful, but somehow, I feel rather indifferent.
Mr. Big Shot talks about how he placed himself under the Hand's protection, and even they failed. But, he adds, they didn't really seem to care about him anyway. Don't ask me why he expected hugs and kisses from an evil cult.
Apparently, the screenwriters don't care much about him either, because he doesn't get a name until long after he's dead. On the other hand, his head of security does ("Bauer", in case you care), so I'm already feeling like this movie doesn't quite have its priorities straight.
"Since I got my minions broadband, I can muse all day without them disturbing me."
For no apparent reason, the video monitors start beeping. Bauer realizes that either all his men are on smoke breaks, or they've all just been killed by an urban legend. And I have to agree with Mr. Big Shot: he shouldn't have hired Bauer. Obviously, the guy is incapable of keeping an eye on his own monitors.
One after another, the screens go blank, and Bauer starts shouting orders. Too little, too late. I suspect he'll be getting a scathing reference letter later.
