Elektra (2005 film)

Elektra is a 2005 action movie directed by Rob Bowman. It is a spin-off from 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 where in Elektra was killed by Bullseye. The story is introduced by a man's voice (later revealed to be the martial arts master Stick) explaining that there is an ancient war being fought between good and evil. The evil is introduced as a group called The Hand, while 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 introduces Elektra dispatching a squad of bodyguards and assassinating of a character named DeMarco. DeMarco is sitting in a larger armchair resigned to his fate and is killed by Elektra throwing one of her Sai into the back of the chair and through him. 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 (Goran Višnjić), 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, her feelings for them leave her 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 (Terence 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.

After the failure of the two Hand assassins, the leader of the group gives the task of capturing the "Treasure" to his son Kirigi and his fellow warriors.

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. In the form of a bird Kirigi follows them to the house and after killing McCabe, hunts down the trio in the forest. Elektra kills Stone tricking him into breaking down a large tree, crushing him. Abby and Mark kill Kinkou with one of his own daggers. Elektra discovers Abby has martial arts skills. Distracted by this knowledge, Elektra is attacked by Typhoid, who gives her the poisonous Kiss of Death. 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 martial arts 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 realizes 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 merely replies that some lessons have to be lived to be understood.

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 and easily beats her and is about to kill her when Abby appears, having followed Elektra. They escape Kirigi and hide in a hedge maze. After they are separated in the maze, Elektra kills Tattoo, who has summoned snakes to capture Abby, by breaking his neck while he is in his animal-controlling trance. Elektra then searches for Abby. In the center of the maze, Elektra once again encounters and fights Kirigi, this time anticipating his speed and killing 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 in the vine maze 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 Sai, flying through the plant walls between them and 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.

Cast

 * Jennifer Garner as Elektra Natchios, assassin for hire
 * Terence Stamp as Stick, a blind martial arts master and practitioner of Kimagure, a martial art that supposedly makes its able to foresee the future and control life and death. He revives Elektra and trains her for a time but makes her leave when he can no longer teach her.
 * Goran Visnjic as Mark Miller, father of Abby. He is named in homage to Frank Miller original creator of Elektra.
 * Kirsten Prout as Abby Miller
 * Will Yun Lee as Kirigi, a member of the mysterious evil group known as The Hand
 * Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Roshi, father of Kirigi and master of The Hand
 * Colin Cunningham as McCabe, Elektra's negotiating agent for her services as an assassin
 * Hiro Kanagawa as Meizumi
 * Natassia Malthe as Typhoid has the ability to poison anything in her path. Her breath or touch can kill whatever they came into contact with, she can even poison her weapons by breathing on them. She was once a skilled ninja called the Treasure.
 * Bob Sapp as Stone has the ability of superhuman strength and is physically invulnerable to anything that is brought to him
 * Chris Ackerman as Tattoo as the ability to summon immortal animals from the tattoos on his body
 * Edison T. Ribeiro as Kinkou has incredible speed and agility through perfect balance
 * Jana Mitsoula as Elektra's mother
 * Kurt Max Runte as Nikolas Natchios, Elektra's father
 * Jason Isaacs as DeMarco (uncredited), a character who has in his career "gained many enemies" and is assassinated by Elektra early in the film.
 * Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock / Daredevil, a cameo was filmed but cut from the final film. The scene was included on the DVD as a deleted scene and later included in the Director's Cut.

Box office performance
Elektra opened on January 14, 2005 in the United States in 3,204 theatres. In its opening weekend it ranked 5th, taking $12,804,793. In its second weekend it took $3,964,598, a drop of 69 percent. Domestically the total gross was $24,409,722, at the time the lowest for a movie featuring a Marvel Comics character since Howard the Duck. The film had a worldwide total of $56,681,566.

Critical reception
Elektra received generally negative reviews from film critics. Based on 143 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes Elektra earned a 10% "rotten" rating. Also Metacritic gives it a metascore of 34 out of 100 which means it has "generally negative reviews".

Home video
The DVD of Elektra was released on April 5, 2005. It featured several deleted scenes such as one featuring a cameo Ben Affleck, who starred as the title character in Daredevil, which preceded this film. An extended and slightly refined two-disc unrated edition director's cut DVD was released in October 2005, featuring a cut detailed for a home video. However unlike the Daredevil director's cut which added about 30 minutes of material not in the original theatrical release this director's cut added only approximately three minutes of footage. It was also criticized for poor video transfer.

A BD of Elektra was released on October 19th, 2009 for the United Kingdom (and France) only. But another BD was announced to be released on May 4th, 2010 for the United States and Canada.

Supposedly the latter release would be a new cut of 139 minutes.

Video game
Elektra was also supposed to have a video game based on the movie with support from the comics. The game 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.

Soundtrack

 * Elektra: The Album