Elektra

Why do people have the need to create sequels to crappy movies? It's not as if it will make the first one any less crappy. All it will accomplish is making the original slightly more enjoyable because it wasn't as bad as it's sequel. Like in this case.

Elektra is the sequel to Daredevil. I think they should've cut their losses after the first one, but no they decided to press on and so must I. This movie is about...I'm not quite sure. Was there a plot? Not a very good one to say the least. It was nicely outlined in the first few minutes though.  Good versus Evil, as always, unseen war in the shadows, isn't that always the way? There's a 'Treasure' both sides want, meh, it's a young girl, why not? Then.. I'm not entirely sure how Elektra fits in. Was she supposed to be the 'Treasure' but failed? You know what, who cares?

This movie starts with some rich guy hiding behind a security force. He knows he's going to die and feels he must share it with everyone. We find out he's running from Elektra, (Jennifer Garner)  a woman who supposedly died years ago, but is back alive and killing people. To make a very long story short, she kills everybody while unexplained wind is tossing her hair about.  So it turns out that she was brought back from the dead to be a contract killer in a skimpy red leather suit.

Through flashbacks (crap, flashbacks. This movie is packed with them) we find out that the good guys in the Good vs. Evil war (or the Way) brought her back to train her in the way of 'The Way' but she failed so she became an assassin. An assassin who enjoys killing too much apparently. See, if she would've been male they would've slapped him on the ass and congratulated him on the high body count, but she's not so it's obvious she has emotional problems. I can tell you what they are: she doesn't have any!

Throughout this entire movie there are no emotions on her face except for a scene of tears when she got kicked out of the Temple of the Way, and one of laughter when she was joking around with Abby (Kirsten Prout). Other than that it's like watching a mannequin run around. Only mannequins usually wear more clothes,

So, her next target is a young girl (Abby) and her father (Goran Visnjic). Unfortunately she can't because they've had a previous bonding experience, or so the writers want us to believe: Christmas dinner. (I don't know, spending Christmas dinner with them probably would make me want to kill them more.)  So instead of killing them she does the next best thing; she kills the assassins sent to do what she couldn't do. 

They get away and we are introduced to the super villains of this movie. Well,  we've seen them before but now we see henchmen as well. At first glance these oddballs have cool powers but you soon see how wrong you are.  They are, in no particular order:

Tattoo (Chris Ackerman): He has animals that pop out of his tattoos that can spy on or attack enemies from a distance. Apparently they are useless up close because they let Elektra walk right up to him and snap his neck.

Stone (Bob Sapp): The man who can stop a shotgun blast at close range, but dies when a tree falls on him. That was pretty stupid considering he was the one who knocked down the tree.

Kinkou (Edson T. Ribeiro): Did he have super villain powers? I don't think so. He did have cool fighting skills but he overlooked one thing: Evil Overlord Rule #193:  If I am using the hero's girlfriend as a hostage and am holding her at the point of imminent death when confronting the hero, I will focus on her and not him. He won't try anything with his true love held hostage. On the other hand, the fact that she has been weak, slow-witted, naive and generally useless up to this point has no bearing on her actions at the moment of dramatic climax. Just substitute 'loser' for 'hero' and 'daughter' for 'true love', but it comes out to the same thing.

Typhoid (Natassia Malthe): Couldn't we think of a better name? Well, it very self-explanatory. She kills people by touching them, or breathing on them, or kissing them as she demonstrated by kissing Elektra. Why couldn't the hot Asian guy get the the kiss of death? I was so expecting Kirigi (Will Yun Lee)  to kiss McCabe (Colin Cunningham) in a kiss of death. Instead we get another pointless lesbian-ish moment (it doesn't count as a lesbian moment when one or both the women are straight) to make all the men horny. Typhoid obviously didn't know Evil Overlord Rule #33 I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions. Why are all they bad guy chicks dressed like whores? Okay, Elektra wasn't much better, but will it kill you to dress in jeans and a tank top? What I don't understand though is why Typhoid was a 'Treasure'. Is it like a Buffy thing where there's one in every generation? If so why didn't the bad guys a.k.a. The Hand (you don't think their connected to The Foot from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles do you?) win? They already had one, they needed more?

Kirigi: Or Hot Asian Guy. What can we say about him. Well, he's hot, Asian and a guy. Very crappy leader. He broke Evil Overlord Rule #197:  I will explain to my Legions of Terror that guns are ranged weapons and swords are not. Anyone who attempts to throw a sword at the hero or club him with a gun will be summarily executed, so he ultimately had to fail.

So where does this leave us? With 5 terrible antagonists, a boring hero, an annoying protagonist, who any normal assassin would've killed at the beginning of the movie, random wind effects that make no sense, action sequences that make no sense (if they had bothered to watch Mythbusters they would know that no one can jump through a window and not get cut) and action music for the arrangement of fruits and toiletries... yeah I know I'm confused too.

But there's an up side: Ben Affleck is nowhere to be found!

Grade: 0/10