ELEKTRA

By: BRIAN THOMAS
Review Date: Saturday, April 16, 2005

Two movies based on the comics of Frank Miller are released two months apart. One becomes the darling of critics and cleans up at the box office. The other is panned all around and is deemed a flop. Why?

While SIN CITY revels in the hard-boiled genre tradition going back to the works of Caroll John Daly, whose iron man detective Race Williams was the blueprint for Mike Hammer and dozens of other pulp heroes, it's still a fresh work with plenty of spark. On the other hand, Miller's work on the ELEKTRA comics now feels clichéd a victim of its own success. His stories were tremendously popular when first published, so much so that their influence reached the point of parody. The most successful spoofing of his ninja/assassin tales was in a little independent comic entitled TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. Ever hear of it? Yup, the Turtles became so famous that gags in their stories were accepted as original concepts, and they were so prevalent that they became overexposed for a good ten years and have only recently begun to make a legitimate comeback.

Everything about ELEKTRA is fresh and exciting if this is 1985. Twenty years later, most of us have seen all this before in other guises. Jennifer Garner returns as the title character, and despite being a bit too lanky to embody the comics character, it's good to have her back for this spin-off. Though thought dead in her previous appearance in DAREDEVIL, Elektra is revived by a blind master named Stick (Terence Stamp), who takes her on as his martial arts student. Unmentioned is the fact that Stick also trained Matt Murdock/Daredevil, as this feature has been made as much as possible to be a stand-alone product. Stick rejects her before her final training can begin, stating that she has too much rage to learn properly.


Cast out, Elektra takes up the trade of freelance assassin, but following classic movie assassin tradition, she wants to retire and agrees to only one last hit. Predictably, we find that she can't bring herself to go through with killing widower Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic), especially after sensing that his daughter Abby (Kirsten Prout) has great potential as a martial artist. Elektra decides instead to protect her targets from other assassins sent to kill them (and her as well), taking them to Stick for protection. But it turns out that the evil ninja clan known as the Hand is really after Abby to recruit her into their family, and they're determined enough to send a team of superpowered warriors after her.

As I said, all pretty much standard stuff from comics and movies from the past 20 years, and played perfectly straight. As such, ir has nothing to be ashamed of the action is plentiful and exciting, and the characters go through their paces well. But ELEKTRA suffers greatly for not going any further into new territory. The bar has been raised when it comes to superhero movies, and though ELEKTRA reaches that bar, she doesn't vault over it. Nevertheless, this DVD provides an opportunity for viewers to reassess it out of the overhyped context of its theatrical release, and its reputation should gain by it.

The disc includes three superfluous deleted scenes, including one brief dream sequence with Ben Affleck reprising the role of Matt Murdock. The Making-Of featurette included is pretty much a puff piece. Director Rob Bowman (THE X-FILES) also appears in a few "Inside the Editors Room" promotional bits, introducing some movie clips. A bit more reality is provided in a video message from Garner (illustrated by behind-the-scenes clips) aimed at comics convention audiences to build buzz. This is an interesting contrast to a few interviews that Garner gave directly after ELEKTRA received so many negative opening day reviews in which she's been reported as saying she only took on the project because she was under contract.

The disc also includes ELEKTRA trailers, ads for upcoming Fox action flicks, and promos for Seth MacFarlane cartoons.

Copyright © 2005 Brian Thomas, author of the massive book VideoHound's DRAGON: ASIAN ACTION & CULT FLICKS.
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