Elektra

“Elektra” is one of those high profile movies that I missed in its time. Catching up…

Directed by: Rob Bowman
Genres: Action, Adventure, Crime, Fantasy, Thriller
Cast: Jennifer Garner, Goran Visnjic, Kirsten Prout, Will Yun Lee, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Terence Stamp, Natassia Malthe, Bob Sapp, Chris Ackerman, Edson T. Ribeiro, Colin Cunningham, Hiro Kanagawa, Mark Houghton, Laura Ward, Kurt Max Runte
IMDB raintg: 5.0
My rating: 5.0 [rate 5.0]

This is one of those movies with a lot and a lot of potential, but that blew it all away. While watching this film I kept thinking that the only purpose of it is to show how sexy does Jennifer Garner’s semi-open mouth is. Yeah, well, OK. I get it! One, two, three… even five times – show it and I will appreciate it. But you have to get on with the movie after some time. It didn’t happen with Elektra. It was just it.

Note that I am writing this post off the top of my head and thus I don’t know what I will end up with, so some spoilers can get in. Be warned.

The film is very disbalanced. Some things are done very well and others suck so much that it is hard to believe that both were made by the same group of people. The story sucked. Big time. The traditional battle of good and evil and the epical meaning of both. “Ancient war” and stuff like that. There were practically no character development. All I understood is that the main character (questionably even that) Elektra had some bad childhood memories which messed her up psychologically. Who she is and why she is the way she is I didn’t understand. And she was the most developed character of all. Crap.

But the biggest disbalance was betweeen the good and evil powers. This film had some of the best evil powers that I’ve ever seen.

Consider them: the biggest boss played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who is a well known bad ass in movies. He always plays yakudza mafia people and other evils. Sadly he didn’t show any evil powers in this film, but just his presence gave evil side a lot of credit. Than there was his son, who was wearing this styled long kimono with some letters on the back. And it came with two swords and some really cool powers like teleporting. This guy was leading a gang of super cool evillers. First there was this huge black guy with a stick. Somehow he couldn’t be shot with a gun and cut with the knife. Things were just bouncing of off him. Unfortunately he died rather stupidly killed by a huge tree that he broke himself. Next comes a guy called “tattoo”. He is rather small and tattooed all over the body. Different forms of wildlife (eagle, wolves, snakes) come out of him and follow his enemies in a burst of really cool special effects. And turned out that he was just hypnotising everyone around him while falling into a mediation. A simple neck brake killed him easily. And there was a woman. There was this gothic looking woman who reminded me Rogue from “X-Men” but the evil and much more powerful kind. Everything she touched, kissed or waves at died a rather quick death. Alltogether an excellent team which is hard to fight.

On the good team were all losers. First there was this teacher of martial arts and good philosophy. Apparently he was blind, but I couldn’t notice it until it was said so in clear text. He was supposedly possessing some really cool superpowers. Like he could even bring people back alive from the dead. But he hasn’t got enough screen time to practice that except for once on … you guessed it – Elektra. Than there was Elektra – some lost women with a couple of knives and teleporting power (hello?! repeating? how come two different characters possess the same skill?). Than there was this girl – Treasure – who was supposedly very good in fighting, but she was never truly shown. And there was her young father who was a total loser – no superpowers or skills worth mentioning.

How the hell did it happen that the good won? Evil powers in this movie were thirty gadzillion times more powerful than good powers. I don’t get it.

More on the film – costumes sucked and were virtually non-existent. Locations were good, but there were not enough of them. Two or three places couldn’t provide all the scenery that was needed for this film. Also I would suggest adding more drama to the movie. Otherwise all those dramatic pauses, looks and other moments weren’t connected to anything meaningfully and were lost.

And martial arts. This film could have benefited from good martial arts tremendiosly. You say there were martial arts? No. I’m telling you. Martial arts is when you can see one or more people performing a complex and fast choreography, and more often than not, being involved in a fight with some other people doing the same. Showing how two sticks hit each other in full frame, or how a bare foot cuts air does not qualify as martial arts. I can do that without breaking a sweat, and I am 120 kilos of fat that are no good at any martial arts what-so-ever. This is just the way the camera works…

Anyway, the film left a lot of unfilled space. It could have been a lot better. Seriously. It was on the right track, but it stopped all developments long before the finish line. Skip it.