(2005)
2
Jeremy Wheeler
It's funny how Hollywood works -- with comic-to-screen adaptations still smoking from the Spider-Man and X-Men franchise successes, it only makes sense for a backwards-thinking studio system to then do a spin-off of one of Marvel's most critically lambasted outings, Daredevil. Thus, Elektra was born and with it, the comic company's biggest financial film failure to date. What went wrong? Was it that audiences weren't interested in female superhero films (à la: Catwoman?), or was it that more people were interested in an Alias movie with Jennifer Garner rather than a knock-off ninja flick minus Ben Affleck this time out? Those questions remain unanswered, but what can be explained and what might shed a bit of light on the debacle is this -- the movie is dead stupid popcorn fodder. Missed opportunities abound, the Greek assassin's solo outing should have been more than the "protect the young, obnoxious child protégé and fall in love with her dad" storyline. Sure, there's plenty of Matrix-y action and there are one or two ninjas in it, but otherwise the picture is Garner trying to inject laughable emotion into an unfeeling script whenever she's not fighting idiots out of a Mortal Kombat movie. Director Rob Bowman does make everything look nice, and he's proficient at fluff entertainment, but there's just not enough to stimulate most audiences over the age of 12, never mind the ones that care for the source material.
Elektra on AllMovie
Elektra (2005)
