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Elektra, 2004 |
 lektra is yet another Marvel comic book turned movie. This one
stars Jennifer Garner as the titular female assassin, in her spin off
film after being introduced (and killed) in 2002's Daredevil. I
have not seen that film, but zero knowledge of it, or the Elektra
character in the comic book is required to enjoy this film. Not that
we actually enjoyed it, but hypothetically speaking...To the scores. Just going by the scores this one could have gotten a much lower overall rating, but while it's not bad, it's not horrible. It's just very, very mediocre in almost every way. It's not good enough or interesting enough or original enough to hate; you just sit there watching it, mildly interested in the plot, enjoying some of the visuals, but pretty uninvolved in the whole affair. It starts, things happen, and it ends. If not for my ability to discuss the individual scores in more detail, I would literally have almost nothing more to say about it. Having said that I didn't like it, I am surprised at its historically low score on Rotten Tomatoes. It earned a woeful 7% approval rating, with just 9 good reviews out of 132 total. I didn't like it, but I've certainly suffered through any number of far worse action films and comic book films, and all of them got better RT scores than Elektra. I suppose the complete lack of passion and energy in the film is what did it in, since while no one really loathes it, there wasn't anything interesting or good enough to catch anyone's attention. The Metacritic score of 34% seems to back that up too; there's just one positive score, and then a ton of 50% and 25% scores. No one gives it a 0% though, since it's not really a movie to hate... just one to forget. To elaborate: (Some spoilers ahead, not that anyone over the age of 7 would find any suspense or surprise in the film.) Script/Story: 3 Elektra's back story and training and life is far more interesting than the events portrayed in the film. In it she's an assassin, and the movie opens with a sort of action scene of her killing dozens of bodyguards and finally the guy they were there to protect. It's pointlessly-protracted, and not cool, though it certainly tries to be and could have been. How you can have a hot chick, in red leather, wielding sais, killing dozens of guys with machine guns, and then beating the head merc in a longer hand to hand duel, and have it not be even slightly exciting is beyond me, but this film manages it. After the opening Elektra's next assignment sends her off to kill a hot father and his cute daughter, which she of course can't bring herself to do. She then ends up protecting them from the mysterious and magical assassins "The Hand" sends after them, bonding with them, meeting up with her estranged mentor/martial arts master, and finally returning to her childhood home and avenging the bad guys who killed her mom and ruined her childhood. It's not a horrible plot, but the way it's handled is just so boring and by the numbers that you can't help but be bored with it. It also doesn't make any sense. The "treasure" is what the bad guys want, and we quickly realize that the young girl is "the treasure." She's supposed to be a combat prodigy, (Not that her action scenes provide any evidence of that.) and they want to take her and train her up to be on their evil side. As we eventually learn though, Elektra was "the treasure" in the previous generation (even though she's like 15 years older than the girl and is certainly not her mother), and better yet, one of the bad guys, a woman with a poisonous breath skill, says she was "the treasure" as well and she doesn't want to be replaced. She might be 35 herself, or 40 or 50 if there's some magical preservation aspect to being the chosen one, but by appearances we've got 3 women in the film, all of whom were born as this amazingly-rare and powerful treasure... and they're like 20 years apart in age. What? On top of that, the poison breath lady isn't very impressive, and her being on the side of the bad guys hasn't destroyed the world. Elektra is a hired assassin and she's not changing the world. So why should we think the annoying child will be any different no matter which side she's on? Basically, the whole plot is pointless, once it's been revealed. Worst of all, all of the bad guys killed in the film are hired assassins, and nothing happens to inconvenience the real puppet master bad guys who sent them. So they'll just send more, if they want to, and even if they don't, they're still untouched by Elektra or anyone else and free to continue trying to destroy the world, or at least get really rich off of their criminal activities. Acting/Casting: 4 No one is horrible, but the script is so boring and the conversation so flat and lifeless that it's entirely unremarkable. Action: 4 There are several fight scenes and some nice sets for battle, but none of the fights are really any good or exciting. They are also edited to complete incoherence. As always, you're left wondering why the actors supposedly undergo months of martial arts training when their actual performances are chopped up into .2 second flashes of movement that don't look good anyway. Combat Realism: 2 This is a new rating category that should be fairly self explanatory. I was going to call it "Martial Arts," but that would have ruled it out in films with action and fight scenes, but no martial arts in them, and I wanted it to get more use than that. Basically this rating is about how well the physical combat is handled; does it look real, is it well choreographed, is the illusion that the actors can really fight preserved, and so on. Elektra isn't a very good movie to start this rating on, since the martial arts and other fight stuff in this film are just awful. There are a lot of fights in the movie, with swords and sais and such, but none of them are any good, and none of them are presented in interesting fashion. If you're watching this film to get some idea how to use a sai, don't bother. Elektra does nothing with them that she couldn't have done with a pair of daggers, and either she never trained with the weapons at all, or her trainers had no idea how to use them. It's really a lost opportunity, since the sai is a very interesting weapon, able to be used like a sword, or a stiletto, or a dagger, and the long trident points to the side of the main point/blade allow you to block a sword and twist it out of the attacker's grip, or turn the blade and stab the sai into their heart while still holding the blade in your trident. How you hold the weapon is a big factor as well, with a plain grip useful for different things than one in which you hook your index finger over one side of the central point, or your thumb. The sai should also be just a bit longer than your elbow, so you can reverse the grip and use it to stab with backhand strikes, and of course you've got two of them, so you can block with one and cut with the other. Sadly, this paragraph contains 100% more sai info than you'll get in the entire film, since Elektra just holds them to look pretty, and fights as though they were a pair of machetes. There are also a few scenes of staff fighting, and those are simply dreadful. The scenes themselves aren't that bad, but the techniques used with the staff are beyond rudimentary, as if they were choreographed by someone who had just picked up a broomstick for a few minutes. No one with any sort of staff experience or martial arts training would have any difficulty beating the supposed staff prodigies on display in this film, and it's disappointing, since vastly more effective staff techniques (than those shown in the film) are not at all difficult to do. I've got to blame the stunt coordinator on this one. Humor: NA Not a laugh to be seen. Since the film never attempted to be funny, this gets an NA rather than a 1 or a 0. Horror: NA See humor. Although, I suppose a child might be scared by some of the imagery and such. I write reviews for adults though, so eh... Eye Candy: 6 This one is an odd score. Some of the special effects are very cool and inventive (if not particularly convincing). One of the bad guys is covered in animal tattoos that seem to live on him. A hawk can fly right off of his chest and become real in the air, snakes flow forth from him in tremendous profusion, wolves howl from his abdomen and leap forth to attack, and so on. Some of the architecture and costumes are very cool as well. Unfortunately, the entire film takes place at night or under cloudy daytime skies in the Vancouver area, and while the woods are beautiful, they're very dark and gloomy and depressing, as are the heavy sweaters and jeans and other functional but boring clothing on display. Fun Factor: 4 A 4 is probably generous, for this uninvolving film. Replayability: 2 Oh hell no. Overall: 4 This one is odd to rate, since while nothing is horrible in it, nothing is better than just barely adequate either. I'm averaging my score closer to the high points than the low ones, but if you gave this a 1.5 or a 2 I wouldn't really argue it. It's all about expectations, as usual. I expected this to be dreadful, and when it was merely bad I was relieved. I was far more disappointed after seeing other action films, when I hoped they would be good. For example: Blade Trinity, Aliens 3 and 4, The Chronicles of Riddick, Star Wars Episode 1-3, Terminator 3, Underworld, and so on. I scored all of those films as low or lower than Elektra, but they're all far better in a way, since there are at least a few things in them I would watch again, or that I remember as potentially great. Elektra had nothing good, but it didn't seem like it was squandering potential excellence either.
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