Wednesday, January 25, 2006

DVD review: Elektra

Hmm...I watched the Jennifer Garner vehicle and spinoff to Daredevil for the same reason I watched U:E - I wanted to see a hot chick kill lots of random ppl. But in terms of success, Elektra was nowhere near as successful. Basically, there's too much plot, not enough fighting, and an annoying kid to boot.

Elektra is brought back to life by Stick who becomes her sensei (why he did this is never really explained, other than as an excuse to showcase his ability). Unable to fully comprehend his teachings, Elektra decides to use her martial arts skills to become an assassin. For her latest hit, she has been sent to a mansion on an island to await instructions. There she meets a 13yo girl and her single father and she bonds with them a little bit. It turns out - da-DUM! - that they are the targets. It turns out the hit was organised by some shady Japanese-run organisation of global evil known as *The Hand* and now that she's failed, a bunch of freaks are out to kill the kid, father, and Elektra as she has decided to try and save the other two from *The Hand*.

I wanted to watch this movie cos I wanted to see Jennifer Garner in her red corset, use those sais to cut down a lot of people. I didn't want to see an exploration of her budding return to humanity and throwing off the ice developed post-resurrection. I mean, I don't mind that kind of analysis of superhero motives...but it was not done in the good Spiderman/Batman Begins way. So what we end up with is a dumb movie that knows it is dumb but is trying desperately to be a smart movie. And the kid - ugh! 13, sure, it's a difficult stage in life, but if you're gonna make the object of rescue a kid, at least make them a little bit sympathetic so that you cheer for her survival. Do not make the character an annoying smart-aleck liar and thief. God, I just wanted that girl to get captured and turned to evil - at least she might have gotten a little bit cooler.

2/5 - I'm being generous cos when they did fight, it was ok.

As this is a DVD review, I'll talk a little bit about the extras. There was a bunch of deleted scenes - the most intriguing were *scenarios* was a dream sequence where Ben Affleck reprised his role as Daredevil - interesting that for once the star of the leading movie makes a showing in the spinoff but was cut. And after learning the kid and dad are her targets, Elektra goes to their house armed with her sais to kill them. The movie opted for her using a high powered bow and arrow combo. I feel this is better as it showed her proficiency with a variety of weapons and allowed a better display of her conflict at having to kill them.

There were extended videos talking to Frank Miller about the character and development of Elektra in the comics, how they decided to design her, plot lines etc. Now, I'm a big geek - I like comics, anime, I correct people's grammar, I'm a scientist and I like to work in scientific stuff into my discussions with other people, for god's sake, I have a blog where I review movies. But that stuff was damn geeky. REALLY FREAKIN' GEEKY. DVD extras should be stuff like explaining stunts and outtakes!

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