ELEKTRA
USA 2005
Directed by: Rob Bowman
Cast: Jennifer Garner, Goran Visnjic, Kirsten Prout, Will Yun Lee, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Terence Stamp, Natassia Malthe, Bob Sapp, Chris Ackerman, Edson T. Ribeiro, Colin Cunningham, Hiro Kanagawa, Mark Houghton, Laura Ward...
Running Time: 94 min. (German DVD)
Tagline
(taken from the US poster) Looks can kill Tagline
(taken from the US poster) Born to fight. Trained to kill. Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) She’s all that stands between good and evil Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) “A sleek action adventure!” (Chicago Reader) Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) “Garner electrifies!” (The Baltimore Sun) Covertext (taken from the US DVD) Superstar Jennifer Garner proves that looks can kill as the sexiest action hero ever to burst from the pages of Marvel Comics. Restored to life after sustaining mortal wounds in Daredevil, Elektra (Garner) now lives only for death as the world’s most lethal assassin. But her latest assignment will force her to make a fateful decision in the ultimate battle between good and evil!
My Thoughts
Jennifer Garner as Elektra was without a doubt the best thing about Mark Steven Johnson’s disappointing DAREDEVIL (2003), so it was no big surprise that this interesting character returned in its own movie. Unfortunately ELEKTRA (2005) has to be called a flop, as it grossed only US$ 24,4 million at the American box office (the budget was said to be about US$ 43 million). ELEKTRA is neither great nor memorable, but it is at least better than DAREDEVIL (no big achievement, I know). There are a handful of imaginative action (and fantasy) set-pieces, and the cast does generally a good job. Jennifer Garner (Sydney Bristow in TV’s ALIAS (2001 - 2006)) is a sexy anti-heroine who knows how to fight and kill. She knows no mercy with her enemies but the PG-13 rating successfully ruins any possible impact during her hard-hitting action moments (there’s almost no blood on display). Kirsten Prout is good too as the seemingly innocent kid with dark secrets, as is Terence Stamp as Elektra’s blind mentor Stick. Only Will Yun Lee remains pale as the main villain, but he has an illustruous bunch of killers around him, with meaningful names like Stone, Typhoid and Tattoo. Their evil organization is called The Hand by the way. Among The Hand’s assassins are a few black-clothed Ninjas but they are no match for Elektra, I’m afraid to say. She kills the first two with her cool, knife-like weapon while the rest is blown to pieces. They shouldn’t have tried to sneak into Elektra’s house! Most of the bad guys (including the Ninjas) dissolve into yellow/green smoke after their deaths. Don’t ask me why! This flick is more or less a typical Hollywood production, meaning it’s technically almost perfect but with no heart or soul underneath the glossy surface. ELEKTRA was directed in mid-2004 by Rob Bowman who is probably best known for directing many episodes of the cult TV-show THE X FILES (1994 - 2000). He is also responsible for AIRBORNE (1993) and the underrated REIGN OF FIRE (2002). The critics were not very kind with this Marvel Comics adaptation. “The latest Hollywood movie to give comic books a bad name”, wrote Manohla Dargis in The New York Times, while Brian Lowry stated in Variety that ELEKTRA “feels alternately too talky to triumph as an action vehicle and too frenetic to be fleshed out to succeed as a drama”. In my opinion ELEKTRA is quite okay, entertaining for most of the time, but hardly anything special and/or innovative. See it, enjoy it, and forget it!
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All text by myself (except for some quotations where mentioned)
All photos are copyright their respective owners and are reproduced here in the
spirit of publicity. All screenshots are by myself.