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Back Shelf Beauties
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Elektra Jennifer Garner stars in Elektra, but you have to wonder if this moment in time is more about Ben Affleck than her. The two are dating, and that can be career suicide for the up-and-coming actress. The Taint of The Affleck has brought down a wide array of Ben's collaborators such as writer/director Kevin Smith, girlfriend/co-star Jennifer Lopez, Surviving Christmas co-star/Emmy winner James Gandolfini, and Pearl Harbor co-star Josh Hartnett. Buddy Matt Damon and former girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow seemed to survive, but only after running away from Affleck like I run away from responsibility and vegetables. With rumors flying about Garner possibly carrying Ben's baby, and a mystery nerve ailment sidelining her before Elektra's big Vegas premiere (which kept her from many TV appearances designed to promote this movie and her TV show, Alias), you have to wonder if The Taint of The Affleck has claimed another victim. After seeing Elektra, I have to say The Taint is alive and well. Jennifer Garner stars as Elektra - a high priced assassin with major issues. She was killed, brought back to life, seen her mother murdered by some sort of demon and grew into an emotionally empty killer-for-hire haunted by memories from her past (that's a lot of stuff, even if Dr. Phil was going to try to help). Elektra's agent/buddy McCabe (Colin Cunningham) has sent her on a new, secret assignment that requires her to wait and wait until their mysterious employer is ready to reveal the target. Along the way, Elektra meets her next-door neighbors, Abby Miller (Kirsten Prout) - a mischievous, spirited, intelligent 13-year old and her father, Mark Miller - a guy trying to raise her right after a tragic event in the past. Of course, Elektra has ended up in a deeper, more complex situation than she imagined when she finds out whom she's supposed to kill. Will she be able to do it? Can she survive in a no holds barred battle between good and evil? What is the importance of her target? Elektra is the worst kind of superhero movie. It's a boring film where you have to be a fan who knows everything going in to the Cineplex because the writers and director did a horrible job trying to explain it all in the movie. Yes, Bowman and company explain to us there is some major battle between good and evil being waged over some prophesized chosen one, but the characters need more depth. We learn about Elektra's past in a series of disjointed flashbacks that don't coherently explain to the audience how she ended up as this assassin, and certainly don't explain to us how she was saved from the last movie we saw her in, DareDevil (where SHE DIED! Then, she was revived). All of the bad guys are merely there to fight, so we learn very little about these characters who seem to have interesting backgrounds and evil skills (especially Typhoid (Natassia Malthe) - a woman who kills with a kiss!). What's with Elektra's main pursuer, Kirigi (Will Yun Lee), who has a chance to become leader of this evil organization? How did McCabe become Elektra's buddy/agent? What are some of the other battles that have been fought between good and evil? All of these questions linger for audience members unfamiliar with the comic book because Bowman and company don't answer them, and don't flesh out the characters to make them more than cool special effects. The movie is more like a series of fight scenes and chases occasionally interrupted by sullen glances because these creators don't aspire to do much else, and don't write any memorable dialogue. In a way, you get the feeling Bowman and company only have a few tricks up their sleeves, so they hold back from making the movie more complex because they don't know how. Worst of all, Bowman has done a very bad job capturing the movie on film. Sure, I have to give him some credit for sexy shots of Garner in those red, satin pants (that's worth a ½ Waffle right there), but most of the movie is almost impossible to see as Bowman puts everything in dark light and shadows. Instead of being mysterious, it's incompetent and hard to follow. On top of that, he overuses slow motion. Instead of using the technique to give us an appreciation for the action or building the drama, we go into slow motion so often I thought the rotation of the earth or time itself had slowed down. The average fight scenes and Garner's generally dead approach don't help much either. I like Garner as an actress, but this role didn't give her much of a chance to impress us. By now, I think anyone familiar with her and her work knows the lady can kick some booty, but that's about all she gets to do in Elektra. She spends most of the movie in a morose malaise, which doesn't keep you interested because so many other parts of the movie are less than stellar. Sure, we're supposed to see her character warming up from her emotional deadness to where she is at the end of the movie, but Garner goes from dead to lukewarm (like a song by The Cure) instead of dead to alive. Elektra is one of worst movies of the year, and it's only January. ½ Waffle (Out Of 4) Copyright 2005 - WaffleMovies.com
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