Elektra (2005 film)

Elektra
Directed by	Rob Bowman
Written by	Screenplay: Zak Penn Stuart Zicherman Raven Metzner Comic Book: Frank Miller
Produced by	Avi Arad Gary Foster Arnon Milchan
Starring	Jennifer Garner Goran Višnjić Kirsten Prout Will Yun Lee Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Terence Stamp
Music by	Christophe Beck
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	January 14, 2005
Running time	Theatrical Cut: 96 min. Director's Cut: 99 min.
Language	English
Budget	$43,000,000
Box office	$56,681,566

Elektra is a 2005 action movie directed by Rob Bowman. It is a spin-off to the 2003 movie Daredevil, starring the Marvel comics character Elektra Natchios (played by Jennifer Garner). The story follows Elektra, an international assassin whose weapon of choice is a pair of Sai.

For the screenplay, Zak Penn, Stuart Zicherman and Raven Metzner received "written by" credit. Mark Steven Johnson received credit for "motion picture characters" and Frank Miller for "comic book characters."

Plot

The film continues the storyline of the film Daredevil wherein Elektra was killed by Bullseye. The story is introduced by a man's voice (later revealed to be the sensei Stick) explaining that there is an ancient war being fought between good and evil. The evil is introduced as a group called The Hand, whilst the good follow Kimagure; a martial art that supposedly makes its practitioners able to foresee the future and control life and death.

The next scene portrays the death of a character named DeMarco, whom Elektra kills by throwing one of her Sai behind DeMarco while he is sitting behind a chair, introducing her as an international assassin. It is later revealed that the dead Elektra was revived by Stick. For a while she was trained as his student, but soon she is asked to leave; thus beginning her life as an assassin.

Elektra receives an assignment to assassinate Mark Miller (Visnjic), and his 13-year-old daughter, Abby. As part of the contract, she is required to stay for some days on their island refuge before the targets are revealed. In this time she unknowingly meets and befriends the two people she has been hired to kill. When told Mark and Abby are the targets, she is unable to kill them and goes to leave the island, in the process noticing two new assassins. Instead of leaving the island, Elektra returns to Mark and Abby's house and kills the two newcomers, in the process discovering they have been sent by The Hand.

Under the misapprehension it is Mark that The Hand wish dead, she leads the pair to Stick (Stamp), as he is apparently leading the fight against The Hand. In a pool club, she confronts Stick by trying to grab his throat, but he grabs hers and slams her onto a pool table. He then tells her she has not changed since she left his tutorship. Elektra also discovers Mark knows why The Hand is following them, although viewers do not learn the reason at this point.

Meanwhile after the failure of the two Hand assassins, the leader of the group gives the task of capturing the "Treasure" (hinted to be Abby) to his son Kirigi and his fellow warriors, each of whom has unique ability: Stone, who has the ability of superhuman strength and is physically invulnerable to anything that is brought to him; Tattoo, who has the ability to summon immortal animal's from the endless tattoos on his body; Kinkou, who has incredible speed and agility through perfect balance, and Typhoid, who can poison anything in her path as she wishes.

Elektra leaves the pool club in anger and is followed by Abby and Mark. Noticing an eagle appearing out of graffiti art on a wall, she realises The Hand has found them and decides to help the pair again. She drives them to the house of McCabe, her negotiating agent. Kirigi follows them to the house and, after killing McCabe, hunts down the trio in the forest. Elektra kills Stone by having him break down a large tree and making sure it crushes him, whilst Abby and Mark kill Kinkou with one of his own daggers. In the process, Elektra discovers Abby has martial arts skills. Distracted by this knowledge, Elektra is attacked by Typhoid, who kisses her in an attempt to kill her. Abby attempts to intervene, but is stopped by Kirigi.

At this point Stick and his pupils intervene, rescuing Abby, Mark and Elektra from the Hand warriors. They all return to Stick's training camp. Here Stick confirms that Abby is the 'Treasure', a prodigy whom the Hand want for their own purposes. He tells Elektra, who has been cured of Typhoid's attack, that Abby must remain under his protection as long as Kirigi is alive. She also realises it was Stick who originally hired her to kill Mark and Abby, apparently as a psychological trick. She questions whether everything that has happened since Stick had expelled her from the camp has been a test, to which Stick replies that some lessons have to be lived to be understood; possibly hinting that this is the case.

Abby tells Elektra she doesn't want to have to stay in the camp forever. In an effort to let Abby lead a normal life, Elektra makes a deal with Kirigi: a fight between the two which will decide Abby's fate. If Elektra is defeated, Abby is given to Kirigi. If Kirigi is defeated, then Abby is free forever.

Elektra returns to the house where her mother was killed (by Kirigi, as she soon discovers), and battles Hand warriors and Kirigi himself. Kirigi quickly beats her and is about to kill her when Abby appears, having followed Elektra. They escape Kirigi and hide in a maze. After they are separated in the maze, Elektra kills Tattoo, who has summoned snakes to capture Abby, by breaking his neck. Elektra then searches for Abby. In the centre of the maze, Elektra once again encounters and fights Kirigi, this time killing him by impaling him with one of her Sai and dropping his body in a well, where he turns to dust. Meanwhile Abby has been attacked and killed by Typhoid who says she is jealous of Abby for being the new "Treasure," because Typhoid was once the Treasure herself. Elektra senses this and throws one of her Sais, killing Typhoid.

Elektra carries Abby's body back to the house, where she successfully revives her, completing her journey to becoming a Kimagure master. The film ends with Elektra and Stick discussing her and Abby's lives. Stick tells her that second lives can often be better than the first.

Character development

Just as Daredevil was for Matt Murdock, the film is about Elektra coping with her childhood experiences and putting them behind her. Throughout the film we are shown her childhood self discovering her mother's murder. The memory appears to be hazy and the assassin she sees becomes clearer every time the memory is shown. Towards the end of the film, the memory properly surfaces and she realises it was Kirigi who killed her mother, just as Daredevil realized it was the Kingpin who killed his father.

There are also a few scenes in reference to her father. This man does not seem to be similar to the one shown in Daredevil (who treats his daughter well) as he is shown forcing her to tread water without use of her hands for long periods of time. However, it is likely that Elektra's father might have changed toward her, probably because Kirigi killed his wife.

It is suggested that the death of her mother and the behaviour of her father caused deep emotional problems for Elektra, possibly causing the OCD. She denies having OCD to Abby toward the end of the film.

There are also many similarities between Abby and Elektra. Both have lost their mothers at an early age, both are good martial artists, and both may suffer from OCD. It is possible that, in Abby, Elektra sees and begins to understand her childhood self, allowing her (as Stick says) to forget her rage and anger.

References to Daredevil

There are a few references to the Daredevil movie in this film. Besides Jennifer Garner returning to the role of Elektra Natchios from the first film, there is a deleted scene in the DVD area of the film which involves Elektra having a dream sequence once she is cured from Typhoid's poisonous kiss where she sees her ex-lover, Matt Murdock, the alter ego of Daredevil in the previous film, say he wants her to come back to live with him. Elektra's agent, McCabe, asks Elektra one time in the film if she "ever got laid," implying the act of sexual copulation, which she did commit with Matt Murdock. The final reference is a flashback sequence which shows Stick reviving Elektra back from the dead after she was killed by Bullseye in the first movie. In the flashback, Elektra is still wearing the costume she wore in the original film.

Cast

Actor	Role
Jennifer Garner	Elektra Natchios
Terence Stamp	Stick
Will Yun Lee	Kirigi
Goran Visnjic	Mark Miller
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa	Roshi
Colin Cunningham	McCabe
Jason Isaacs	DeMarco (uncredited)
Hiro Kanagawa	Meizumi
Natassia Malthe	Typhoid
Jana Mitsoula	Young Elektra's Mother
Kirsten Prout	Abby Miller
Bob Sapp	Stone
Chris Ackerman	Tattoo
Edison T. Ribeiro	Kinkou
Ben Affleck	Matt Murdock / Daredevil (DVD deleted scene)

Canceled video game

Elektra was also supposed to have a video game based on the movie, or the comics. It would go into the comics just like any other comic book movie, but it was never released, as publishers felt it would not be popular enough. However, there is a game based on the movie that was released for mobile. There is a petition online by a publisher, who said the only way they would make it is if a lot of people signed up for Elektra: The Game.

Critical reaction and box office response

Elektra garnered a poor reaction from critics and fans (only 10% of the reviews on film review site Rotten Tomatoes were positive), and it was regarded as a box office failure. However, the film sold well on DVD. An extended and slightly refined 2-disc edition director's cut DVD was released in October 2005. The director's cut features a different cut of Elektra detailed for a home movie system. In 2007, Rotten Tomatoes ranked it as the second worst comic book movie of all time.

See also

• Elektra: The Album

External links

• Elektra at Marvel.com
• Official site
• Elektra at IMDb