Elektra (2005)

Director:

Rob Bowman

Writers (WGA):

Mark Steven Johnson (motion picture characters) and
Frank Miller (comic book characters) ...

Release Date:

14 January 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Fantasy

Tagline:

She's the last thing that stands between good and evil.

Plot:

Elektra the warrior survives a near-death experience, becomes an assassin-for-hire, and tries to protect her two latest targets, a single father and his young daughter, from a group of supernatural assassins.

Plot Keywords:

Box Office Flop | Comic Hero | One Word Title | Underwater Scene | Wire Fu

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Jennifer Garner	...	Elektra
Goran Visnjic	...	Mark Miller
Kirsten Prout	...	Abby Miller
Will Yun Lee	...	Kirigi
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa	...	Roshi
Terence Stamp	...	Stick
Natassia Malthe	...	Typhoid
Bob Sapp	...	Stone
Chris Ackerman	...	Tattoo
Edson T. Ribeiro	...	Kinkou
Colin Cunningham	...	McCabe
Hiro Kanagawa	...	Meizumi
Mark Houghton	...	Bauer
Laura Ward	...	Young Elektra
Kurt Max Runte	...	Nikolas Natchios

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for action violence.

Runtime:

97 min | 100 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Japanese

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:16 (video rating) | Iceland:12 (video rating) | Iceland:14 (theatrical rating) | Taiwan:R-12 | Malaysia:18SG | Canada:PG (British Columbia/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | UK:12 (video rating) | USA:PG-13 (certificate #41331) | Denmark:11 | UK:12A (original rating) | Canada:14A (Alberta/Manitoba) | South Korea:15 | USA:Unrated (director's cut) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Brazil:14 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-15 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIA | Ireland:12A | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Zurich)

Filming Locations:

Capilano River Regional Park, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Stone was actually one of Stick's partners and helped to save Daredevil and Elektra in the comic books after Kirigi and the Hand attacked them (during Frank Miller's run).

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Elektra is talking to Mark after she finds out he and his daughter are not who they say they are, she says, "Who are you? Don't lie to me." When she says "Don't lie to me," her lips are not moving.

Quotes:

Bauer: Who do you think's coming for you?
DeMarco: You may have heard of her. Her name... is Elektra.
Bauer: [scoffs]
DeMarco: You find that funny?
Bauer: She's an urban legend, sir. That woman died years ago.
DeMarco: Really? Well, then somebody must have brought her back from the dead.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: The Worst of 2005" (2006)

Soundtrack:

SOONER OR LATER

Huh?

This is absurd - aside from the fellow Australian who has reviewed this flick, I can't help but think that everyone else who has submitted a review so far was some way involved in the production of Elektra, considering how generous they were with their praise.

Admittedly I'm not really a fan of comic-book-to-movie conversions so I didn't go in with many expectations, yet still I found Elektra to be incredibly underwhelming. The thing that irked me the most was the fact that there was SO MUCH in this film which went by unexplained, that left you thinking "huh, what relevance does that have to the plot?" or "so how did that aspect of the character come about?" I can only hope that these are things which are perhaps explained somewhat in Daredevil, which I have no intention of seeing.

Furthermore, the behaviour of the characters in this film appear to do an about-face at random moments to suit the storyline, and don't even get me started about the utterly pointless romantic sub-plot. I'm also (still) scratching my head over the fate of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa's character, which seems to have gone by unexplained.

If I can give kudos to this movie for anything it would have to be the fantastic locations in which it was shot, but otherwise I gained little enjoyment from Elektra. I know we're supposed to suspend our disbelief for fantasy/action films, but almost everything in this film was so improbable or confusing (even by action film standards) that it simply frustrated me.

Well, hell, at least Jennifer Garner looks damn good.