Review of Elektra (1994) by Alfie D — 25 Nov 2013

Spin-off/quasi-sequel to 2003's Daredevil is Elektra; the 2005 Marvel film that successfully crushed the potential franchise.

Despite having the same actor play the same character in a movie where she has flashbacks to her original film, Elektra couldn't be more different from Daredevil. While the latter may have had a couple of problems trying to figure out whether it was going for realism or fantasy, Elektra completely drops the ball and just gets fucking weird. The storyline makes of itself to be the ultimate struggle between good and evil, but ends up being little more than an angst-y, CGI-ridden chase-thriller (sans thrills).

Plenty of critics say that Jennifer Garner's screen presence was enough to charm the film into a positive place. Personally I disagree. No actor, not even my beloved Ray Stevenson, could have saved this shocker. And as a side-note; I personally don't think that highly at all of Mrs. Garner.

The film sets up the cannon-fodder (see the villainous "Tattoo" above) quite nicely, and seeing them taken out is akin to Ghost Rider. But in reality, this band of baddies ("The Hand", as they're known) and their executions are really the only worthwhile part in the film, from beginning to end. Though I personally panned Daredevil, I think the fact that Elektra basically ignored her once-love's existence was pretty rough.

The film is ridiculous, and yet takes itself so seriously that there's no way to enjoy it as just a bit of dumb fun. Jumping off from the success of Daredevil, a huge budget and a total plethora of ready-to-pick characters to choose from, it's crazy to think of how Elektra managed to miss the mark so completely. Riddled with cliches and plot-holes, I can't see why they bothered to get this film off the ground, when so many brilliant ideas linger in Development Hell forever.

Finally, I don't know if any other Marvel film to date has so whole-heartedly raped its source material as Elektra did. Not the issue with the film itself, but I don't see how creator Frank Miller could ever have let this shit slide.

20%.

-Gimly.