| Elektra | |
|---|---|
 "She's the last thing that stands between good and evil." | |
| Directed By | Rob Bowman |
| Written By | Raven Metzner, Zak Penn, Stuart Zicherman |
| Cast | Jennifer Garner, Will Yun Lee, Terence Stamp, Kirsten Prout |
| Produced By | Arnon Milchan, Gary Foster, Avi Arad, Kevin Feige |
| Cinematography By | Bill Roe |
| Film Editing By | Kevin Stitt |
| Music By | Christophe Beck |
| Studio | Marvel Enterprises, Regency Enterprises, New Regency Productions, Horseshoe Bay Productions |
| Distributed By | 20th Century Fox |
| Franchise | Daredevil Franchise |
| Country | United States, Canada |
| Language | English |
| Release Date | January 14, 2005 |
| Runtime | 96 Minutes |
| Rating | PG-13 |
| Budget | $43,000,000 |
| Gross | $56,681,566 |
Overview[]
Elektra is a 2005 American-Canadian produced action-adventure crime superhero film starring Jennifer Garner and Terence Stamp. It was directed by Rob Bowman. The film was a spin-off of the 2003 Daredevil film with Garner reprising her role as the titular Elektra.
She is beautiful. Graceful. And absolutely lethal. She is Elektra, a highly skilled assassin who is struggling to find peace after her death and resurrection. On an assignment, Elektra finds her long dormant conscious is awakened and is forced to use her lethal skillset to defend and protect rather than kill her assigned targets.
Plot[]
After being murdered by the assassin Bullseye, Elektra Natchios finds herself resurrected by Stick, the blind leader of a secretive order of martial artists known as the Chaste. Inducted into the order, she is personally trained in their arts including Kumagure; an advanced meditative form that allows the practitioners with precognitive abilities and to resurrect others; the very technique that allowed Stick to save Elektra.
The Devil Lady in Red
However, Elektra finds herself unable to reject her anger and rage. Stick sees that Elektra nurses a deep wound in her heart; witnessing her mother's murder as a child and is unable to fully master Kumagure; which requires her to let go of her anger and is finally forced to expel her from the Chaste. Distraught and enraged by the abandonment of Stick, Elektra delves into the darkness of her rage and swiftly becomes a high priced and highly effective freelance assassin accepting assignments from a high-priced handler, McCabe.
Her latest assignment from McCabe is however baffling. Contracted anonymously, the contract demands that she spend a few days in a large house in beautiful scenic island before being informed about her targets. The quiet solitude begins to unnerve Elektra who finds herself unable to lose herself in her relentless training as she usually does in-between assignments.
One day, she catches a young girl Abby trying to steal a memento of Elektra's mother; her favorite necklace. She learns that the girl is bored and has apparently taken to petty thievery to amuse herself. Seeing a lot of herself in the younger Abby, Elektra befriends the girl and is subsequently introduced to her father, Mark Miller. The pair live in a neighboring house and Elektra starts to develop romantic feelings for Mark.
Their relationship comes to a crashing halt when Elektra discovers that Mark and Abby are her next two targets and that they have been hiding on the island from assassination attempts.
Unable to bring herself to complete the assignment, she flees the island only to discover to her horror from her handler McCabe that another group of assassins, a notorious ruthless organization known as the Hand have uncovered information about the Millers' location. Returning, she is barely in time to rescue them from the Hand assassins and convinces Mark and Abby to come with her for their own safety.
Meanwhile, Roshi the Master of the Hand is enraged to learn of his assassins' failure and dispatches his son, Kirigi with his band of handpicked warriors; Stone, Tattoo, Typhoid, and Kinkou to personally finish the job and Elektra if she interferes.
Elektra subsequently contacts Stick as his martial arts order, the Chaste has long been one of the primary opponents to the Hand. She hopes to leave the pair to Stick but finds herself rebuffed once more by the inscrutable martial artist. Having no where else to turn to, Elektra seeks sanctuary at McCabe's house but is tracked by Tattoo and McCabe is killed.
Elektra subsequently kills Stone and is flabbergasted when Abby is able to slay Kinkou; demonstrating some martial arts skills that she picked up from watching Elektra fight. Distracted, Elektra is poisoned by Typhoid and is dying when she is saved by the intervention of Stick while the Chaste drives the rest of the surviving Hand assassins off. Stick cures Elektra who realizes that Abby is the true target of the Hand; not her father Mark as she erroneously believed.
Where do you think you're going?
Stick confirms that Abby is a once in a generation martial artist prodigy known as a "Treasure" ... much like Elektra was her generation's "Treasure". Elektra bitterly realizes that it was no accident that she encountered the Millers and that Stick had manipulated the entire thing from the beginning. That Stick was the one to hire her through McCabe to assassinate the Millers as a test. She wonders if her whole expulsion from the Chaste itself wasn't some sort of extended trial; a final lesson. Stick admits that sometimes some lessons are best imparted by living it to truly understand them. He further warns her that Abby will never be safe from the Hand and that she must remain with the Chaste and be trained in the martial arts in order to protect herself.
Abby is terrified and wants nothing more than to leave the Chaste and the Hand behind her. Elektra vows that Abby will be able to live her life free of both of them and proffers a deal to Kirigi. A wager for all or nothing in one final showdown. If Elektra wins, the Hand vows to leave Abby alone for the rest of her life. If Kirigi wins however, they get Abby and kill Elektra as well. Bemused, Kirigi accepts and they set their confrontation at the Natchios' abandoned family mansion.
Final Fight! Elektra VS Kirigi!
Elektra successfully fends off the first wave of assassins but is confronted by Kirigi himself who overwhelms her with his bursts of superhuman speed. In the ensuing battle, Elektra suffers a horrific flashback to her mother's death and realizes that Kirigi had been the one to kill her. Stunned, she is swiftly subdued and is about to be killed when Abby interrupts the duel, having followed Elektra. Distracted, Elektra is able to run away with Abby only to find themselves pursued by a multitude of serpents summoned by Tattoo who forces them into a hedge maze where they are separated. Even as Abby finds herself surrounded and on the verge of being overwhelmed, Elektra is able to track down Tattoo and brutally snaps his neck; causing his summoned snakes to evaporate. Before she can rejoin Abby however, Elektra finds herself confronted by Kirigi once more and the pair once more fight with the Hand assassin once more quickly dominating their struggle. On the verge of defeat however, Kirigi takes a moment to reassure Elektra that he will take good care of Abby only to find himself impaled on one of Elektra's sais as she had finally been able to anticipate his attack pattern.
Abby finds herself confronted by Typhoid who reveals that she had been a "Treasure" as well and jealously poisons Abby. Elektra kills Typhoid and desperately employs the Kumagure, successfully releasing all of her rage and resurrecting Abby. Afterwards, Elektra shares a final tender goodbye with Mark and tells Abby to have a good life and hopefully she won't grow up to be like Elektra.
Cast[]
- Jennifer Garner as Elektra
- Terence Stamp as Stick
- Goran Visnjic as Mark Miller
- Kirsten Prout as Abby Miller
- Will Yun Lee as Kirigi
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Roshi
- Colin Cunningham as McCabe
- Laura Ward as Young Elektra
- Hiro Kanagawa as Meizumi
- Natassia Malthe as Typhoid
- Bob Sapp as Stone
- Chris Ackerman as Tattoo
- Edison T. Ribeiro as Kinkou
- Jana Mitsoula as Mrs. Natchios
- Kurt Max Runte as Nikolas Natchios
- Jason Isaacs as DeMarco
- Mark Houghton as Bauer
- Tom Woodruff Jr. as Demon
- Paul Wu as Fight Instructor
- Taku Kawai as Glowering Ikuren
Production[]
During the production phase of the Daredevil feature film, 20th Century Fox had ambitious plans to extend it in a franchise such as the successful Spider-Man and X-Men movies recently produced. As a result of their plans, when they contracted their primary stars, they included a clause to ensure that they would be available for participation in future films of the planned franchise series.
Despite the lackluster critical reviews and marginal financial success of the 2003 Daredevil film, 20th Century Fox executives nevertheless decided to push ahead on their plans for continuing the potential franchise and decided to spin-off the supporting character of Elektra in her own feature film despite the fact that she seemingly died during the course of the Daredevil film; sufficient ambiguous hints laid the groundwork for her potential return. Mark Steven Johnson who wrote and directed Daredevil agreed to continue the Elektra story arc by writing the screenplay for the film and they already had Jennifer Garner contracted to reprise her role.
Garner was less than enthused with her return to the role of Elektra following her less than successful outing in the previous film and was able to prioritize her commitments to the Alias TV series that she was starring in by shooting during the summer break between shooting seasons of Alias.
Filming was done in Los Angeles, California and British Columbia, Canada and was accomplished in only 62 days.
Additional/Alternate Movie Taglines[]
- She's the last thing that stands between good and evil.
- Looks can kill.
- She was left for dead. Now she's back with vengeance.
- Born to fight. Trained to kill.
- Before she can find peace she will wage war.
Reception[]
Elektra was released on January 14, 2005 alongside Coach Carter; Racing Stripes; and Appleseed. Domestically, it opened in 3,204 theaters and grossed $12,804,793 on its weekend run. However, it failed it overcome the competition from the premiere of rival films Coach Carter and Racing Stripes; which both managed to catapult to the 1st and 4th places of most popular movies while Elektra only managed to claim the fifth spot for that weekend.
It proceeded to plummet to the 10th most popular movie by its second weekend and out of the Top 20 by its fifth weekend. Elektra would continue to drop like a rock over the course of its 11-week box office run and barely managed to hang in the Top 100 before it closed. Overall, it earned a gross total of $24,409,722 domestically with an additional $32,585,924 from the foreign markets for a combined worldwide total gross of $56,995,646. Thus, it is did manage to barely make back its original budget but did not earn a great profit and was considered a flop.
The film earned mostly negative reviews from critics who universally panned it for its terrible plot with Variety critic Brian Lowry admitted that a "flurry of last-minute rewriting shows in a disjointed plot" with only primary star Jennifer Garner earning a few praises such as by Helen O'Hara for Empire magazine for struggling "to rise above the limitations of the script".
The Rotten Tomatoes website gave it an 11% "Rotten" Rating with Metacritic scored it a "34 out of 100" and gave it generally unfavorable reviews.
Elektra is widely considered to be one of the worst Marvel Comics-based feature film releases in history, being only exceeded by the 1994 release of the Fantastic Four; the 1990 release of Captain America; and the 1986 Howard the Duck. It is said that the film probably ruined the possibility of major Hollywood backing any female-lead superhero films for over a decade by proving that the idea of a female superhero lead was simply "unprofitable". The dismal results of Elektra in addition to the 2003's Daredevil film resulted in 20th Century Fox in allowing the film rights to the characters to lapse back to Marvel Comics.
Elektra was subsequently released on DVD in April of 2005 and VHS tape in May of 2005. The DVD version included several deleted scenes including a brief cameo by Ben Affleck reprising his role as Daredevil. An extended 2-disc DVD box set featuring an unrated director's cut with additional footage was released in October of 2005. This director's cut was further criticized as it only included three extra minutes. A Blu-Ray version was released in 2009 which contained only the unrated director's cut version.
Trivia[]
- Despite being an actual spin-off of the 2003 Daredevil film, Elektra was primarily touted as being tied to the much more popular (and profitable) X-Men Franchise Films.
- Jennifer Garner was reputedly not a fan of the film or the script, feeling "it was terrible" and publicly admitted that she only did it because she was legally obligated to star in from her 2003 Daredevil contract. She faced heavy criticism from the studios for airing her grievances publicly even before it was released.
- A soundtrack based on the film, Elektra: The Album was also released in 2005 by Wind-Up Records. Strangely enough of the 15 songs contained on the soundtrack, only 4 were used in the film which included a remixed version of Submersed’s “Hollow” during one particular scene. However the album only featured the original version and not the remixed version.
Associated Pages[]
Teams & Groups[]
- The Chaste
- The Hand
External Links[]
Trailer[]
"Elektra" (2005) Theatrical Trailer