Film reviews
Elektra,
Dir; Rob Bowman, Cert; 12A
Ok,
I admit, I’m not exactly a connoisseur of “Comic Book Movies”
– probably because I always associated them, and the comic books
themselves – with the spotty fat kid at school who played Dungeons
and Dragons and couldn’t get a girlfriend. A little unfair I know
(not to mention tremendously un-PC) but, you know, sometimes the truth
hurts…then again, I couldn’t get a girlfriend at school
either…
So, my non-enthusiasm for these kind of movies aside, I was hardly filled
with optimism by the largely indifferent reviews that the film had amassed
so far, but hey, I always go in to ANY kind of movie open-mindedly and
you know what? I actually quite enjoyed this!
For those of you who don’t already know (and those of you who actually
HAVE a life), the character of Elektra was killed off at the end of the
2003 flick “Daredevil”, but here she is again, revived from
the dead and given another shot at making things right.
Played by Jennifer Garner (and she must have played her role well because
I kept forgetting it was her…), Elektra is an assassin, assigned
(ouch, those two words don’t look right together do they?) to the
task of seeing off a gentle widower (Goran Visnjic) and his seemingly
innocent daughter Abby (Kirsten Prout). Our heroine seems to have become
a little soft since her last big screen foray though, and can’t bring
herself to fire the arrow, partly because she relates things that have
happened to Abby to her own childhood. The further we go into the film,
the more we learn about the tragic circumstances surrounding the dynamic
family duo and find out more than we bargained for about them. Not that
it surprised me much, but still…
It’s a pretty formulaic story, but it certainly entertained me, and
I guess that’s the whole point. It also made me laugh out loud a
few times, though I’m not entirely sure this was intended by the
director…
The only part of the film that I DIDN’T enjoy was right near the
end when some bloke came in stood directly behind me with a plastic bag,
right in my line of vision (I have eyes in the back of my head see?) so
although I got the basic gist of what was going on, bagboy kind of spoilt
the last few minutes. Fucking weirdo.
Anyway, there’s not much I can add to my summary of the film because,
other than several fights and tricky situations, not a great deal else
happens. It was strangely satisfying seeing the classic British actor
Terence Stamp in this kind of film though. Having said that, I reckon
I’d have been up for acting in it – it looked like a bundle
of fun to make! 7/10
Tone E
Odeon
Online
