Stabbing the Franchise (Elektra, 2005)

No. Just…no. I refuse to review this.

Stop looking at me.  I will not review it.

Absolutely no way.

Oh, OK…I finally sat through Catwoman…it seems unfair to avoid Elektra.

The film opens with General Zod telling us that Elektra is important to the forces of good and evil. We then get a sequence with Lucius Malfoy. He is telling a black ops type security team they are protecting him from Elektra. They fail. It is shot really nicely, most everything is awash in darkness, so the red of Elektra’s outfit is striking.  And there ends the best thing I can say about the film.

We learn Electra is doing the paid assassins gig and is apparently a bit quirky about her DNA. We see her training with Stick (Terrence Stamp) and I am unsure if this is a flashback. She later meets this girl stealing a bracelet in a house that I guess is Elektra’s new house. his introduces us to Elektra’s motivation and her crisis of conscience as an assassin.  The little girl is under siege by magical ninjas called the Hand.

When I say magical, I am not making an amusing joke. they can give you instant diseases, turn into smoke, have living tattoos and so on.  When Elektra finds herself in a losing side of a battle with the Hand, Stick and a cavalry of Ninjas (we know they are good, cause their ninja clothes are white…seriously, it is that on the nose. It is an hour in, by the way when I realize Stick is blind.

I cannot think of a whole lot positive to say about Elektra. It is… Mystifyingly incoherent. It never really makes much sense, even after things are explained. Interestingly, it is a spinoff of Marvel’s Daredevil movie…but makes no connection. Her death is referred to in vague terms. The villains lack personalities…they are strictly defined by their powers. It is hard to care about the events of a film when you cannot be given a reason to care beyond being told repeatedly “this is important.”. The film lacks any characters for the viewer to connect to. Oddly, I chose to watch the directors cut…how much less incoherent was the theatrical cut of this film?!

While there are all sorts of references to the comics, they are not used well.  And when you see how well the Netflix Daredevil series handles some of these same characters, it makes the film that much more disappointing.

Elektra certainly gives Catwoman a run for the money for a top spot in the Worst Comic Book Movie competition. Catwoman still wins…but it had a tough competitor.