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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Salesrank: 19049
Released: April 5, 2005 |
| Our Price: $3.03 |
| Used Price: $0.03 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
FROM THE FORCES THAT BROUGHT YOU X-MEN AND DAREDEVIL?Superstar Jennifer Garner proves that looks can kill as the sexiest action hero ever to burst from the pages of Marvel Comics. Restored to life after sustaining mortal wounds in Daredevil, an icy, solitary Elektra (Garner) now lives only for death as the world?s most lethal assassin. Using her bone-crunching martial arts skills and Kimagure?the ability to see into the future?Elektra is on a collision course with darkness? until her latest assignment forces her to make a choice that will lead either to her redemption or destruction in the ultimate battle between good and evil!
Description of Elektra (Widescreen Edition):
While 2003's Daredevil was a conventional superhero movie, the 2005 spinoff, Elektra, is more of a wuxia-styled martial arts/fantasy flick. Elektra (Jennifer Garner) has returned to her life as a hired assassin, but she balks at an assignment to kill a single father (Goran Visnjic, ER) and his teenage daughter (Kirsten Prout). That makes her the target of the Hand, an organization of murderous ninjas, scheming corporate types, and a band of stylish supervillains seeking to eliminate Elektra and tip the balance of power in the ongoing battle of good vs. evil.
As the star of Alias, Garner has proven that she can kick butt with the best of them, and some of the visual effects are impressive, but the action sequences tend to be anticlimactic, and there's not much to the story. Fans will notice numerous references to Frank Miller's comic books, but there's very little resemblance to Miller's cold-blooded killer (Elektra with an agent? Elektra referring to herself as a "soccer mom"?).
Is Elektra better than Daredevil? Not really, even with the distinct advantage of having all Garner and no Ben Affleck. That could be the spinoff's greatest disappointment: after Spider-Man 2 raised the bar for comic-book movies, Elektra lowered it back to Daredevil's level. Directed by Rob Bowman (the X-Files movie), and featuring Terence Stamp as the mysterious mentor Stick, Will Yun Lee (Die Another Day) as the chief villain, and NFL-player-turned-mixed-martial-arts-champion Bob Sapp as the immovable Stone.
DVD features
Ben Affleck's much-rumored cameo is one of the deleted scenes on the Elektra DVD. It's a one-minute throwaway, and while he's supposedly appearing as Matt Murdock (who romanced Elektra in Daredevil), the barrage of celebrity gossip makes it impossible to see him as anything other than Jennifer Garner's real-life boyfriend. There's also a making-of featurette, which is mostly promotional hype other than a few interesting effects shots; four editing featurettes; and Jennifer Garner's videotaped message to ComicCon. --David Horiuchi
More on Elektra
Elektra: The Album (Soundtrack CD) |
Elektra: The Movie (Comic Adaptation) |
Frank Miller Comic Books |
Daredevil (Director's Cut) (DVD) |
Jennifer Garner stars in Alias (DVD) |
More Superhero DVDs |
Elektra (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Elektra... Red Bustier? At least Daredevil had an excuse.... he was blind. 
2009-11-01 - Elektra: 4 out of 10: When people said Jennifer Garner, as Elektra, was the best thing in the movie Daredevil. I'm pretty sure they were mostly damning with faint praise. After all Jennifer, while certainly an attractive female, came across as a sorority pledge playing dress-up on S and M rush night.
In Elektra she looks even more ridiculous. There have been plenty of great female assassins over the years from the camp of a Bond villain, to the seductiveness of Linda Fiorentino, even the girl next-door deadliness of Bridget Fonda in Point of No Return. Female assassins are a wonderful staple of filmdom, seductive yet deadly. Garner is neither. "She looks like she is thinking of puppies," claimed one reviewer I read and I concur. If the Smurfs were X-rated ninja's, then Garner would still be miscast in Smurfette: Deadly Blue.
Her costumes certainly don't help her cause. You almost have the urge to tell her to put some clothes on and bright red Victoria Secret lingerie just doesn't scream stealth or deadly. Lord knows the rest of this mess doesn't help Garner either.
While Terrance Stamp can do no wrong every else seems either miscast or afraid of stealing Garner's thunder. Add on poor special effects, villains that turn into family friendly yellow smoke when killed, ninjas that crash through windows like Army rangers, gas stoves that explode like nuclear weapons, laundry fu, Japanese villains out of a World War 2 propaganda film and my personal favorite the warmest Christmas in Canadian history.
The movie clearly takes place in the northwest United States or Vancouver. The days are long, everyone is in short sleeves, and Garner takes recreational swims in the lake. (Canadian Lakes are notoriously cold even in August mind you) So when a cherub faced character asks Garner over for Christmas dinner Elektra isn't the only one surprised.
Garner is sexy but when it's time to kill she should either get dressed or let the grown-ups take care of things.
Climax problems
2009-10-06 - Pretty good atmosphere, and I like Jennifer Garner, so I liked it - to a point. Unfortunately, the point I stopped liking it was the climax. Since I don't want to be a spoiler, I won't say more.
Mediocre TV Movie 
2009-09-14 - Finally got to see this and I can say it was definitely NOT worth the wait.
This movie has the production values of a bad pilot and the story is about as dull an uninteresting as that same dull pilot. I first encountered the character in the Daredevil comics back in the day and this version of Elektra bears no resemblance to this character.
Shoveling in the relationshippy/mother-daughter angle into what is supposed to be an action movie about a ruthless assassin turns Elektra into a "kick ass chick flick". Well, I've nothing again kick ass female characters. I enjoyed the original issues of Daredevil with Elektra, heck, I even enjoy Xena, but this movie is so poorly made that everything about it just bores one to death. It's by the numbers movie making and hits all of the cliches dead on: grimacing Asian assassins, the stoic blind teacher, the tortured female hero torn by love and family and a desire to "settle down". Yawn.
It's exactly this type of mundane super hero movie that WATCHMEN was created to counter.
Avoid this one like the plague. Jennifer Garner deserved better than being shoved into this clunker. Don't waste your time on Elektra.
Good story,,,right amount of action 
2009-09-10 - I guess most people who seemed this movie would rate it low because there was not enough action. However, Electra was not a heroine that did not have any super-powers, but skill, speed, patient, and thought. All of which came through the movie the movie. True there was some CG action in the movie but just enough to make this movie good for what it is...all about the fights and J. Garner! If you're a big fan fan of Garner, then you will love this movie. Remember Alias?
5 Stars for Jennifer Garner, cinematography 
2009-06-18 - Otherwise the plot line and direction sucked. Still, much better than average film of this genre.
