Elektra

Review by Jason Gaston

 

When last we saw her she had been made into steak tar-tar by the villainous and very hammy Bullseye in Daredevil, but for some reason was probably still alive. Now, since she has her own movie, it's more than obvious that Elektra did make it out of her last movie alive, but after seeing her first solo adventure, I kind of wish she'd stayed dead all the same.

Yes, it's Elektra... big as life and hot as ever. In this movie, she is back to her old tricks and apparently much better after getting skewered. She's a paid assassin now and pretty anti-social as most of these dark heroes have a tendency to be. When she take a job to kill some guy and his daughter, though, her heart goes all goopy and she decides to protect them from the dark forces that want them dead.

On the plus side, I can say that Elektra is no where near as bad as Catwoman. As a matter of fact, Elektra should send a fruit basket to Catwoman for lowering the bar so much. That being said, Elektra is a confused jumble of a movie that never quite knows which tone to strike. It goes for satire - which it almost does quite well - and then goes headlong into the boring "anti-hero's life is changed by some kid" story.

All in all, this movie reminded me of Catwoman and the idea that some pinup chick in leather would make for a good movie. Someday, I pray, that the Hollywood half-wits that greenlit this movie and the countless others like it will get it through their thick skulls that isn't the case. It's the script, stupid! Sure, Jennifer Garner is hot beyond hardly any boundary of belief, but if I want to ogle her, Alias comes on TV every week for free... and it's more entertaining.

It's sad to think that after comic book movies have taken so long to pull themselves out of the black hole of suck that they'd been in for so many years, they're in danger of starting the slow slide back down again and it's dreck like this we can thank for it.

The sorry script is alive with several... oh, heck... let's just call them stupidities. Saturday morning cartoon villains that disappear in a puff of green smoke, hard to follow mythology that I don't think was ever really explained, and the fact that Elektra isn't a hero, but rather... a chick who gets paid to murder people, is laughably danced around whereas, a more talented set of writers would have turned it into good drama.

In the end, Elektra is harmless but boring superhero hoo-hah. Jennifer Garner is pretty terrible in this role, but in her defense, I don't see how anyone could have saved it from its inherent horribleness.

It's sad to think that after comic book movies have taken so long to pull themselves out of the black hole of suck that they'd been in for so many years, they're in danger of starting the slow slide back down again and it's dreck like this we can thank for it.