Like I say, this film definitely wasn't a critical or commercial success, it's third only to the 1990 version of Captain America (the one where Matt Salinger does a passable impression of a giant horse chestnut tree in the leading role) and 2015's disastrous Fantastic 4 remake (a film which could quite feasibly topple Daredevil at the bottom of our list when we get around to reviewing it in the distant future) in the lowest rating of any Marvel film on Rotten Tomatoes stakes and only just scraped back enough to recoup its production budget. But is it actually as bad as everybody says it is? I guess there's only one way to find out...
So I s'pose the first thing you're thinking is "But hold on - didn't Elektra die during the Daredevil film?" Answer - yes, she did thanks to Bullseye shishkebabbing her with one of her own katanas. However, it turns out that her body was recovered by a group of ninjas called The Chaste lead by Stick (Terence Stamp which is always a good sign). They attempted to train her in the art of kimigure which heightens the practitioner's senses and even gives the most gifted at it the power of resurrection but her levels or rage and paranoia saw them cast her out and she now travels the world working as a mercenary and assassin. We see her in action to start the film off, breaking into some ne'er-do-well called DeMarco's compound and dispatching him and his guards with ease.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Far East, we see the headquarters of the Hand, an organisation who are searching for "The Weapon" - from the film's spoken intro by Stick we find that there is one of these, a supremely gifted female warrior, each generation, also known as "The Treasure". The Chaste and the Hand are both engaged in a continuing battle to gain these warriors for their side in the battle of good against evil.
Returning to her home, we find out that Elektra also has an agent now called McCabe (okay, PA for an assassin, wonder where that job was advertised?) and he's received a generous offer for her to travel to a remote island in Oregon to off a target. However, she has to stay in a house on the island for a few days first before receiving her instructions.
Arriving on the island, Elektra is shocked on her second day to discover a young girl breaking into her home and stealing her prized necklace, her only memento of her mum who was killed by evil ninjas (the Hand as we will find out) when she was little. Later, the girl approaches her as she's meditating by the lake to apologise and invite her for Christmas dinner with her and her dad later that day. The girl's name is Abby and her dad is called Mark. It turns out that Mark's wife died recently as well and Elektra ends up empathising with them both.
The next day, Elektra receives her instructions and finds out that Abby and Mark are the targets she's been sent to assassinate. She sets up to shoot them both with her longbow but can't bring herself to pull the trigger and aborts the mission to set off home on the ferry. However, as she's setting off, we see a couple of Oriental types in sunglasses who promptly disappear when Elektra tries to get a better glimpse of them. Realising that other people have designs on killing her targets, she quickly sets off back to warn them.
The assassins arrive at the log cabin shortly after Elektra and she makes quick work of the first one although the second proves a bit trickier as he starts lobbing throwing stars at the trio like there's no tomorrow. Incidentally, I will say this - the fight scenes in Elektra are actually pretty cool in a Matrix style slo-mo way and are probably the high points of the film. Anyway, Elektra manages to impale shuriken boy with one of her throwing daggers although he warns that there are more assassins coming for her and her charges. Incidentally, when the Hand assassins perish, they all turn into clouds of green smoke which I thought was actually quite cool.
Worried, Elektra decides to track down Stick for advice on fighting the Hand and finds him eight-balling all comers in a local pool hall. She tries to get him to help her but the pair end up bickering and coming to blows with Elektra coming off worst and storming out. In the end, the group decide to head to McCabe's house in the countryside and take their chances there.
Meanwhile, at the Hand HQ, responsibility for tracking down Elektra and Abby has been passed over to Kirigi, the son of their leader Roshi. He quickly assembles a team of spooky ninja assassins including Typhoid, who can poison anything she comes into contact with, Tattoo whose tattoos of snakes, wolves, hawks etc can come to life, Stone who has Luke Cage-style unbreakable skin and Kinkou who's an expert dagger fighter. Using Tattoo's hawk, the assassins track Elektra, Abby and Mark to McCabe's house where Abby has decided to get a new haircut essentially turning her into a mini-Elektra. The trio escape down a secret tunnel while McCabe stays behind to try and fight off their assailants. That goes about as well as you'd expect and he ends up getting battered to within an inch of his life by Stone then beheaded by Kirigi. Ow.
Elektra, Abby and Mark escape into the woods where the Hand assassins try to track them down. Elektra manages to kill Stone by dropping a tree on his head (bet you Luke Cage would never have allowed that to happen to him...) while Abby proves that she's actually an accomplished martial artist in her own right by getting into a fight with Kinkou and using her chain to impale him with one of his own daggers. However, Typhoid grabs Elektra to give her a poison kiss and kill her leaving Mark and Abby facing a three-on-two fight. However, Stick and the Chaste ninjas show up forcing the Hand to retreat.
Stick once again uses his powers of resurrection to bring Elektra back from the dead and she wakes up at the Chaste's village headquarters where Stick explains that he's been tracking her ever since she was expelled from the sect. Apparently the hit on Abby and Mark was a set up by the Chaste as they wanted to see if Elektra had learnt to be pure of heart which she has. She also oversees Abby's training and learns that Abby is worried about what lies in store in her future.
That night, Elektra uses her kimigure powers to contact Kirigi and challenges him to a final showdown at the old Natchios mansion. If Elektra wins then the Hand agree to leave Abby to choose her own destiny but if Kirigi wins then the Chaste must surrender Abby to the Hand. Elektra travels to the mansion and finds it pretty much as she left it with dust sheets covering everything. Kirigi attempts to send in a group of Hand assassins first but Elektra uses some gas and a candle to blast them out again in a wall of flame which is pretty cool.
Unfortunately the fight sequence that follows it between Elektra and Kirigi is the only one in the film which comes over as a bit daft as they fight in the entrance hall with dust sheets flying everywhere which makes it look like the fight scene is taking place on one of the haunted house levels in a Super Mario game...
Kirigi seemingly has Elektra beat by suffocating her under a load of dust sheets but the sudden arrival of Abby who's evidently followed Elektra all the way to the house without her knowing (plot hole alert). She lands a blow on Kirigi with her chain just as Elektra recovers and the pair bust through a window and escape into the maze outside the mansion.
The pair become separated in the maze and Abby ends up getting ambushed by a load of snakes which Tattoo has sent. They're about to squeeze the life out of her when Elektra saves her by finding Tattoo and breaking his neck. However, Abby is then ambushed by Typhoid who we find out was a Treasure the same as Elektra and Abby but chose to join the Hand rather than the Chaste. She breathes poison over Abby, killing her.
Meanwhile, Elektra and Kirigi have run into each other and go for combat round 2. Again, Kirigi looks to have got the better of her but he lets his guard down for just a split second which allows Elektra to stab him through the heart, killing him. She then locates Typhoid using her kimigure skills and throws her dagger through the hedges, hitting Typhoid in the face and killing her.
Elektra grabs Abby's body and takes it back into the house where she tries to use her kimigure powers to resurrect her, something she's never been able to do before. Although it doesn't initially appear to work, she eventually manages it and we get our happy ending. Elektra says goodbye to Mark and Abby who head off to get on with their lives while Stick tells her that she's earned her redemption.
Okay, you know what, I'm just gonna say it - this film is nowhere near as bad as everyone says it is. Certainly compared to its atrocious predecessor (and other stinkers I've sat through for this blog recently like "Hulk"), it feels like a much-needed leap forward. Maybe it's just that I went into watching it with low expectations but "Elektra" is a perfectly serviceable no-brainer martial arts action film and, apart from the daft "haunted house" fight, the sequences are slick and entertaining enough to just about keep the film afloat. Garner looks a lot less lost than she did in "Daredevil" and Terence Stamp is his usual charming-but-slightly-menacing self. On the flip side, the plot doesn't really amount to much other than putting Elektra in a tough situation and letting her fight her way out of it (then again, sometimes less is more) and the fact that although she defeats the Hand's assassins that the organisation is still very much out there and plotting to kill her and Abby come the end of the film is a bit of an obvious plot hole.
Possibly it could be that the reason for leaving the story so open-ended is that a sequel was being planned but unfortunately (although sadly predictably given the baggage it was arguably saddled with right from the word go), "Elektra" didn't perform well at the box office and only just to say recouped its budget meaning the project, along with "Daredevil" was quietly dropped, reverting back to Marvel ownership about seven years later. Jennifer Garner would disappear off into the world of rom-com films and the next the world would see of Elektra and Stick would be in series 2 of the Daredevil TV series a decade later where, in keeping with the world of Marvel Netflix series, the characters (now played by Elodie Yung and Scott Glenn respectively) were portrayed in a much darker form, ditto the Hand who were resurrected as the main villains in both Daredevil and The Defenders. However, although it's by no means a classic, I think "Elektra" does at least deserve to be filed as "under-rated" in the greater Marvel cineverse. Finding a second hand copy on Amazon is something I would imagine is unlikely to cost you very much so why not give it a watch and see for yourself.
FINAL RATING: ⚔⚔⚔⚔⚔⚔ (6/10)
CURRENT MARVEL FILM TABLE
1. Spiderman 2 (2004) (9/10)
2. Spiderman (2002) (9/10)
3. X-Men 2 (2002) (8/10)
4. Men In Black (1997) (8/10)
5. X-Men (2000) (8/10)
6. Blade 2 (2001) (7/10)
7. Blade (1998) (7/10)
8. The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) (6/10)
9. The Punisher (2004) (6/10)
10. Conan The Barbarian (1982) (6/10)
11. Elektra (2005) (6/10)
12. Conan The Destroyer (1984) (6/10)
13. The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk (1989) (6/10)
14. Blade Trinity (2004) (6/10)
15. Men In Black 2 (2000) (6/10)
16. The Incredible Hulk (1977) (5/10)
17. Doctor Mordrid (1992) (5/10)
18. The Punisher (1989) (5/10)
19. Doctor Strange (1978) (5/10)
20. Nick Fury: Agent Of SHIELD (1998) (4/10)
21. The Fantastic Four (1994) (4/10)
22. Hulk (2003) (4/10)
23. Red Sonja (1985) (4/10)
24. Captain America 2: Death Too Soon (1979) (4/10)
25. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)
26. The Death Of The Incredible Hulk (1990) (3/10)
27. Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge (1979) (3/10)
28. Howard The Duck (1986) (2/10)
29. Captain America (1990) (2/10)
30. Captain America (1979) (2/10)
31. Generation X (1996) (2/10)
32. Spiderman Strikes Back (1978) (2/10)
33. Daredevil (2003) (2/10)
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