PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 01/18/04)

So annoyingly inconsequential that it gives new appreciation for more masterful Hollywood junk food, the Marvel Comics-based actioner Elektra is like a candy bar that induces lethargy without the sugar rush—hell, it doesn't even taste like chocolate.  Spun-off from 2003's comparatively less dopey Daredevil, this caricature-driven vehicle stars the blandly beautiful Jennifer Garner as the titular she-ninja with wind-blown hair and booty-shaping crimson lingerie.  She's buff, deadly with a three-pronged sai, and has only one superpower: the ability to dig lazy screenwriters out of a hole by experiencing blurry flashes into the not-too-distant future.  But wait, you target demographic of horny 14-year-old boys ask, didn't Elektra die at the end of Daredevil?  Never underestimate the resuscitative forces of box office, DVD and cross-promotional revenue . . . and a little far-eastern healing. 

Trained and then banished by an old, monk-like curmudgeon named Stick (Terence Stamp, woefully typecast), Elektra now freelances as an executioner-for-hire.  She even has her own smooth-talking agent, who passively scolds her after a day at the office: "Quite a body count on this one, E."  Then comes the ridiculous premise when the swaggering, iron-jawed Elektra takes a meditative lakeside vacation, where she meets her neighbors and next assignment, Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic) and his daughter Abby (Kristen Prout).  Plagued by the childhood demons that torment her in oversaturated flashbacks, Elektra instinctively decides to protect instead of kill the Millers, who are on the run from an oddball team of assassins called The Hand (all of whom are crudely cartoonish, like the squat punk-looking Tattoo, whose killer animal tattoos come to life).  Oh, and one of the members of The Hand just happened to kill Elektra's mother, so this all ties together and supposedly makes sense.  When will studios realize that comic-book melodrama this ludicrous can't take itself so seriously if it expects to be fun or interesting?  From evaporating ninjas to a blatantly exploitative lesbian suck-face, overdone hedge maze combats to movie dialogue as half-assed as its entry-level CGI effects, Elektra lacks thrills, narrative, emotion, believability, character development—and frankly—watchability.

—Aaron Hillis