Review: Elektra
Starring: Jennifer Garner and Terrance Stamp
Directed by: Rob Bowman

Alias fans - are you ready? Finally Jennifer Garner kicking ass (again) on the
big screen!! Who thought it was a good idea to make a sequel to Dare Devil? 
Admittedly, this was somewhat of a creative move, a sequel that doesn't carry
over the main characterÉ I think that's only been done once or twice beforeÉ
and usually not well (not that this is an exception). But Elektra has the
blissfully distinguishing characteristic that it is absolutely and completely
Ben Affleck free. 

The movie starts pretty well; Elektra is stalking down some businessman who's 
hired a crack security team to defend him. After she melts a path through his
guards with her trademark sais and hot bondage outfit she dispatches the bad
guy with gusto. The audience along with myself were primed and ready, this was
gonna be great! Now cut to the next scene, Elektra again, getting ready to roll
her leather wraps up and get down to the dirty workÉ of scrubbing the floors
of her apartment, and pretty much continues to do so for the rest of the 
ovieÉ I think that there was some sort of love interest, and maybe a bad ass 
ittle girl with a whip at one point, but they really didn't seem to have 
any basis on the story. Oh yeah, and there was an Asian guy or two. The next
hour and a half is re-living Elektra's (apparently only two) painful past
memories, in flashback form, over and over again. Eventually Elektra's old
mentor Stick (Terrance Stamp) comes to save us from the drudgery. Stick is a 
ad ass, blind (I guess we couldn't stray to far from Daredevil) monk who lives
out in the woods. I think this move works as a poor prequel to The Limey
though, and they really should have tried harder. But just like Daredevil, you
have to put forward your only interesting character. 

There's something about these Marvel comic movies. It's as if they don't 
realize that their formula is at best mediocre. In book form characters like
Daredevil, the Punisher, the Hulk and now Elektra work for two main reasons. 
First the art in many of them is fantastic and there's action - at least
enough to make the half hour (at the most) of reading worth your time. When
you try to pack that same amount of action into an hour and a half movie,
you've got to add a lot of filler. X-Men, while lacking in action, at least
has good character development, something this movie seriously lacks. I think 
the director was trying to develop the Elektra character with the fifteen
thousand flashbacks, but when you just flashback to two images that many times
the meaning gets lost. In the end it wasn't enough for me to buy the magical
scene at the end where she gains the skill, inner strength, or whatever to
defeat her nemesis Kirigi (Will Yun Lee) who I think killed her mother
(otherwise it was some guy dressed as a goat). It just sort of happened, 
after the same flashback she's been having the whole movie, she can catch 
peedy Gonzales mid stride and also throw her sai a quarter of a mile through
a hedge maze and kill her other opponent the otherwise lovely Typhoid
(Natassia Malthe). That's great if she's now that much of a bad ass, but I'd
like to be let in on whyÉ

In the end, if you like action movies with very few fight scenes that last a
really short amount of time, then baby, this movie is for you! Contrarily, if
you're a big Jennifer Garner fan and want to see her wander around in baggy
clothesÉ let me tell you, go and see this movie now! Skip work! 

Elektra opens nationwide Friday January 14th
Dave can be reached at dkerr@detroitbuzz.com