Mini Review - Elektra

I was hoping to make a long review of this, but upon a rewatch, I didn’t think I had the material to do that. My thoughts on Daredevil have somewhat changed, but I’m leaving the details for something special next year, for now, just know that Elektra Natchios was introduced in that film and because of the relative success of Daredevil, a spin-off was released in 2005 with Elektra as the star

Elektra was not successful in any way, it scored a meagre 10% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average 3.8/10, it has an audience score of 29% with an average 2.6/5, but worse than that it made only $56.7m on a $43 budget, which when you factor in theatre cuts and marketing, results in a net loss for the studio. This film has a certain infamy as one of the worst (the worst is coming, we’ll get to it) but it that entirely warranted? Let’s take a look.

So, Elektra in this movie has been revived from the dead and become an assassin for hire, with a reputation for leaving lots of dead bodies in her wake. She’s hired for another job but because of dumb reasons she’s told to spend time in the neighbourhood beforehand where she meets all of 2 people: some guy, and the most annoying girl in the world. I don’t care to remember their names.

Of course, some guy and annoying girl are the targets, because who else would they be? Turns out annoying is a super-secret chosen one or something and now it’s a battle between the Hand’s army of 5 super-villains and the Chaste… who do next to nothing in the entire movie.

That’s a pretty sh*tty script, but let’s delve a little deeper with comic book knowledge. There’s Kirgi…

…

There’s Kinkao…

…

There’s Typhoid Mary, who doesn’t possess any of the abilities of her comic counterpart, nor was her comic book counterpart ever associated with the Hand, there’s Tattoo, who isn’t even the right gender in this movie. And then there’s Stone, a member of the Chaste in the comics.

But with 5 super-villains, there’s bound to be some good action right. Well no, actually, it almost entirely consists of people running, quick cutting sword fights, easy take-downs, and whatever the f*ck that was with the sheets. I don’t know if this was compensating for lack of skill among the cast or saving money on stunt doubles but it looked atrocious.

Elektra has something resembling a character arc, as she becomes close to her targets and decides not to kill him. Pity that happened less than 1/3 of the way through the movie, and that’s where her development ends. I have so little to say about any of the other characters in the movie, they’re so flat.

Stick is… I think they’re implying he’s manipulative. But he did revive Elektra and helped train her until she was kicked out because there’s too much evil in her heart or something.

Despite having 5 super-villains, I’d struggle to tell you much about any of them. Typhoid is probably the one with the most personality, but her backstory is given as a throw-away line. She has the highest body count of any of the Hand (I mean, both the people she kills are revived but that’s more than any of the others) before herself being killed and fading into green smoke because heaven forbid there be any blood in this movie.

Oh, for some reason they make Kirgi the killer of Elektra’s mother… this was so unnecessary and pointless I almost forgot about it.

Despite being only just over 90 minutes, Elektra is dull, made worse by cliché dialogue, bland characters and really bad action scenes. It’s not offensively bad for the most part (although it might be if you're a fan of her in the comics) just boring, which is in some ways kinda worse. I don’t know how the Hand has less personality than in the Netflix shows.

Rating 20/100