Produced by Avi Arad, Gary Foster, Arnon Milchan, Cast: Jennifer Garner, Terence Stamp, Goran Visnjic, Kristen Prout, Will Yun Lee, Chris Ackerman, Natassia Malthe, Bob Sapp, Edson T. Ribeiro, Cary-Hirouyki Tagawa, Colin Cunningham.
A stated intention of Director Rob Bowman’s in bringing the fierce-femme warrior Elektra, last seen dead at the end of Daredevil, back to life, was to flesh out this Marvel Comic Superhero Action genre flick with a character-driven plot. Elektra (Jennifer Garner) is therefore a tormented heroine. (In fact, who of the Marvel Superheroes is not? And in contrast, how refreshing was The Incredibles for its humour and lightness as well as its characterisation, and superheroes who do not take themselves so seriously.) The fight between Good and Evil in this movie is not only between the traditional sides, good ninjas called The Chaste, helpfully dressed in white and led by blind sensei Stick (Terence Stamp), and the evil, supernatural ninjas The Hand, led by Roshi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and his son Kirigi (Will Yun Lee). Good and Evil also wage war within our heroine. Which is probably why she has to wear red, in a costume highlighting her worst, but not her best, physical features. A death wish, perhaps? Fashion death, anyway, dictated by labels and not suitability. Brought back to life by Sensei Stick through the mystical ability of kimegure – an art not only to see the future but also to control time and, in its most advanced practice, to bring the dead back to life – Elektra is the most powerful, but not the best, of Stick’s students. Having traumatically lost her mother at a young age to a demonic assassin, and presumably her autocratic, demanding father as well – which we learn about in flashbacks through out the movie, Stick serves as surrogate father as well as a Sensei. “You know all about violence and rage,” he tells her after she uses more than necessary force during training, “but you do not know ‘the Way’”. “Teach me, Master,” she says. “It cannot be taught. You must leave.” Hmm. Like any reasonable bright and Good student, she suspects it is a test. However, so distraught is she at being cast out by the only family she has, she fails to work out that if it is a test – a challenge to find the Way of Peace every warrior on the side of Good must have at heart, say - then becoming a legendary assassin for hire is failing in a spectacularly wilful way. Or just an unconscious adolescent backlash against her surrogate parent, perhaps. It’s Elektra’s tragic flaw, with an oblique nod to her Greek namesake: cut off from her father-Sensei, she becomes an instrument of death whom love cannot reach. So there! Enter her next assignment, the double termination of the gorgeous Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic) and his sassy teenage daughter Abby (Kirsten Prout). Fortunately they mirror her own tormented history sufficiently for her finger to falter on the trigger. An attack in short order by the Evil Hand ninjas, seeking a ‘Treasure’ the father and daughter apparently guard, turns her into their protector and saviour. Perhaps Sensei Stick’s devious plan is working! By far the most interesting and creative characters in this movie are the supernatural ninjas of the Evil Hand. Give me Typhoid (who kills indiscriminately with a breath or a touch of her hand in a most convincing, blood-curdling way) as an archetypal baddy any day, or Tattoo, whose body art becomes lethally projected in a way any sorcerer would die for – and they usually do. A major plot flaw here. With all their supernatural powers, why they would want the ‘Treasure’ at all – which carries, by the way, no guarantee of actually being an asset to the forces of evil – is glossed over as shallowly as the majority of the special effects martial arts stunts in the movie. Elektra has no supernatural powers. Moreover she lacks a degree of Heart (or Knowledge of the Way). Apparently protecting Abby and Mark brings out her own transformation, through self-parenting, perhaps, sufficient for her to spontaneously master the most advanced ability her master failed to teach her. Well, this is a comic superhero genre movie. It’s not enough transformation however, to allow her more than a momentary romantic lip-tangle with the smouldering Mark. Terence Stamp brings sufficient gravitas to the sensei role with a nicely judged light detachment he could well teach Garner, for all his character’s failure to teach hers within the plot. Goran Visnjic does what he can with the role of protective father-on-the-run and a pleasant surprise is Kirsten Prout as the talented, opportunistic Abby. Jennifer Garner works perhaps too hard and fails to convince, while Will Yun Lee as Kirigi, the Evil Hand head – er, thumb? – is martial arts poetry in motion. © Avril Carruthers, 14th January 2005
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