TALK TO THE HAND
... 'Cause the face don't want to see 'Elektra'
By Andy Klein
... 'Cause the face don't want to see 'Elektra'
If one ignores the clunky expository voiceover that precedes it, the opening sequence of Elektra is cause for at least moderate hope: Against a lovely bluish night exterior, our titular heroine (Jennifer Garner, reprising her role from Daredevil) creeps and leaps ninja-like into a compound with all the high-tech security in the world. Inside awaits the man (Mark Houghton) she will shortly kill. Despite all his guards and surveillance devices, he is resigned, since Elektra is the greatest assassin in the world.
The lighting and design look great; Garner doesn't look bad herself; and the supernatural action direction is fun. The whole thing is reminiscent of the great opening of Corey Yuen's 1992 Savior of the Soul; and for the price of an adult ticket to Elektra, you can probably buy a copy of Savior of the Soul online, which would be money better spent.
Every step thereafter by director Rob Bowman and screenwriters Zak Penn, Stuart Zicherman, and Raven Metzner brings us closer and closer to the inglory of Catwoman. Part of the problem is in the very nature of the character: While I like my superheroes and -heroines to have a dark side, Elektra has nothing but. Sure, she's had it hard, as numerous flashbacks show us: There she is, a little girl being forced by her stern father to stay afloat and upright in their gigantic pool without using her arms; there she is, still a little girl, stumbling upon the corpse of her mother and spotting some sort of shape-shifting demon (or something) at the scene of the crime.
Still, lots of kids have mean coaches and dead parents, and while some may grow up to be hired killers, at least they're not completely humorless hired killers. I mean, what a gloomy gus! Mourning does not become her.
The closest the film gets to comic relief is Colin Cunningham as McCabe, Elektra's long-suffering agent. And the word "comic" can only be applied here relative to the rest of the tone.
The plot of the subsequent 80 minutes has something to do with an evil secret society of predominantly Japanese membership called ... The Hand! Under the leadership of Roshi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), The Hand is trying to obtain The Treasure (or something like that). After numerous failures, the assignment goes to Roshi's ambitious son Kirigi (Will Yun Lee), whose posse includes a walking menagerie named Tattoo (Chris Ackerman, looking nothing like Hervé Villechaize) and Typhoid (Natassia Malthe), a Goth Hand-maiden with the ability to suck out your life force. (The droll metaphorical implications of her power are never even hinted at.)
The only force keeping The Hand in check is Stick (Terence Stamp), Elektra's blind former teacher, who has about as much personality as his name suggests. He has to help Elektra, hunky Mark (Goran Visnjic), and troubled teen Abby (Kirsten Prout) fend off Kirigi and friends.
Somehow the fate of Abby and Mark becomes bound up with Elektra working out her issues by returning, near the end, to the long-abandoned family mansion wherein all her traumatic flashbacks were shot. Her ability to defeat The Hand is equated with her Coming to Terms With Her Past. This she accomplishes in part by blowing a bunch of them up: She turns on the stove, lets the room fill up with gas, and then ... kabloom!
Given the kinds of genre films I love, I can accept that Elektra moves at superspeeds now and then ... and that she intermittently sees into the future ... and that great battles are fought by opponents throwing huge chi whammies at each other. But the idea that after 20 years of nonpayment, the local utility company has never shut off the mansion's gas ... well, there are degrees of suspension of disbelief beyond even the most willing viewer.Published: 01/20/2005
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
