This movie gets off to a great start, with a funky yet chilling opening delivering vibes reminiscent of The Matrix or Equilibrium which both came out just a few years prior. It’s a relatively simple opening scene but sets the atmosphere very nicely – not perfectly, but not far off either – it’s got to be one of the best opening scenes ever made in an action hero movie I think. You could call it an understated masterpiece thus far.
The following scenes are quite interesting and captivating, and carry an element of the same vibe from the opening scene, but to a lesser degree, as the antagonists pose a real threat to Elektra, and the movie turns out to be Decent but not nearly as good as it could have been. I would rate this movie just one level down from the best action hero movie with a female lead (such as Wonder Woman which has a better plot as well as better peak adrenaline moments, but a similar level of horror and drama creeping in).
Jennifer Garner stars as Elektra in this movie – she’s an assassin with subtle superpowers. Aside from lacking the animalistic side, her character has a lot in common with Halle Berry’s Catwoman which came out the year before this movie, and the year after Daredevil where Elektra was also featured as a major character. That’s three years running of this type of lethal female action movie heroine. There was also Æon Flux in 2005 and Ultraviolet in 2006 – both respectable female assassin movies from around the same time, with similar levels of martial arts and athleticism too, although not on the same level as Marvel’s Elektra and DC’s Catwoman production-wise.
Elektra has some kind of Spidey Sense, like Daredevil’s super hearing ability, giving her an early warning when anyone potentially dangerous is approaching from very far away. But much more than that, she has the ability to see the near future, giving her the chance to change it and catch people by surprise.
That’s not even the height of unrealism in this movie – there are also demons taking the form of ninjas (within the antagonist ninja clan called The Hand) who turn to smoke when they die. And there are some weirder demons looking like oddball mercenaries, having special powers to do certain magic tricks. For example, one called Tattoo, played alright by Christopher Ackerman, has tattoos of animals that come to life. Another, called Typhoid Mary, played adequately by Natassia Malthe, blows kisses and waves hands that suck the life out of plants and people. Then another, called Stone, played alright by Bob Sapp, is big bulletproof black man, like Marvel’s Luke Cage, while also throwing sticks powerfully enough to chop down big trees. This team of weird demons is led by the boss’s son (from The Hand), played adequately by Will Yun Lee whose scenes work well in a way, but he’s also a bit too fresh faced for the role, like some kind of K-Pop boyband member, unlike his father played more convincingly by the scorched face of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Fortunately, they’re still not quite good enough to kill Elektra.
Garner pulls off the lead role pretty well. She’s a talented actress and is not terribly unattractive either (although the beauty contest in this movie is won by Norwegian-Malaysian actress Natassia Malthe playing Typhoid Mary). Garner’s a bit of a tomboy, but no more so than most female leads of action hero movies. She’s is quite athletically built and this makes her well suited to the role of Elektra – a martial arts expert and assassin who moves like few others in the world can (due to camera tricks).
It’s also good to see Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung from the 90s Mortal Kombat movies) playing the leader of The Hand (the ninja clan that’s been trying to kill or capture Elektra for a long time). He does a great job as usual.
Croatian actor Goran Višnjić (with vibes of a cross between Charlie Sheen and Matt LeBlanc, minus the comedic touch) does a good job as the father of a teenage girl who is being hunted because she’s “the treasure” – the main prodigy child within her generation showing great potential to be a top assassin. Kirsten Prout plays the girl adequately – she’s a decent young actress who has plenty IQ for the role but not nearly so much athletic talent as would be ideal. She has a puffy goldfish face, poor coordination and a gormless bratty demeanour – the sneaky, impatient bratty side of her seems intentional but her lack of athletic poise stands out when she’s meant to be a top ninja prodigy with partly established skills.
Terence Stamp does an alright job as Elektra’s former ninja clan master, called Stick, who comes to her rescue when she’s on the verge of defeat, and takes her back to the dojo along with the father & daughter she was sent to kill but decided to protect – her contract was sponsored by Stick, somehow knowing Elektra would protect them instead of kill them. These are some cool scenes to enjoy – from the near assassination to the protection to the rescue to the training back at the dojo and the feeling of it being a safe place for a while.
In stark contrast to the awesome opening for action movie junkies, the last 5 or 6 minutes of this movie is little more than an extended soppy mess for drama mushes. What a missed opportunity and switch up of genres. These drama-loving directors just can’t help themselves, even when they have 95% of a good action movie completed already. Given the lack of depth to the plot, the excessive dose of horror genre creeping in as the movie matures, and the undesirable soppy ending, I have to rate this movie no better than Decent, on a par with movies like Daredevil (which came out 2 years prior and also featured Jennifer Garner as Elektra in a major supporting role). Just one level down from the best female-led action hero movies of all time (like Wonder Woman), even though from the outset Elektra clearly had the potential to be so much better – it just went gradually downhill as the movie progressed and unfortunately shifted genres from smooth action to borderline horror to soppy drama in the end.