After the failure of ‘Catwoman’ the previous year, another female-centered superhero film was on the way. That of ‘Elektra’; a spin-off to 2003’s ‘Daredevil’. Maybe due to how badly received ‘Catwoman’ had been by most of the DC fanbase and critics alike, ‘Elektra’ was poorly received by Marvel fans and critics upon its release. As a result of these two failures studios were put off from doing female-centered superhero films for many years until DC’s 2017 ‘Wonder Woman’ film came out and was met with praise.
Given current day Marvel’s current obsession with female superheroes, they seem to have forgotten about this film; 2019’s ‘Captain Marvel’ was NOT the first female-centered superhero film for Marvel despite current belief.
I was eventually able to finally watch this film after many years I was left thinking I’d rather be watching this than a vast majority of today’s female-based Marvel films.
The story starts off with Elektra (Jennifer Garner) finishing a previous assassination contract. Highly skilled, Elektra can defeat anyone no matter how many security guards said target hires to try and protect them. Usually with her sai knives.
After killing her intended target, she heads back home to find that she has another contract waiting for her. During this time, Elektra remembers how she came to be; being resurrected by Stick (Terrence Stamp), a blind martial artist and becoming his best student. It isn’t before long before she becomes a hired assassin.
Back in the present day, Elektra is spending a few days watching her new target on an island; Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic) and his daughter Abbey (Kristen Prout). That is until she learns that the organization that resurrected her-The Hand- offers her $2 million to kill Mark and his daughter.
Elektra is hesitant though; after watching them for three days she sees nothing wrong with them and realizes suddenly that she has to choose between being good or evil.
After finally being able to watch ‘Elektra’ after the bad state of the current MCU films, I admit ‘Elektra’ wasn’t too bad. It’s not the worst Marvel film I’ve ever seen (that’d probably be ‘New Mutants’; the only X-Men film I’ve ever had problems with) compared to some of the more recent ones. Especially under the Disney banner.
The action scenes were pretty well done. Especially the fights between Jennifer Garner and Will Yun Lee towards the end of the film. Compared to a lot of today’s female characters from today’s Marvel films, at least Gerner’s outfit looks ok by me. She looks gorgeous in it.
Over all, if you are looking for a film that has a female superhero in it and is MUCH better than the current lot from Marvel, ‘Elektra’ is still a decent film to watch nearly twenty years later.
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