Post by Harkovast on Dec 16, 2014 0:59:25 GMT
Remember Dare Devil?
It was a bit shit, wasn't it?
I mean a blind super hero with super senses sound kinda cool...but the film was just pretty pants.
Ben Affleck beating up Colin Farrell (who had a bullseye branded onto his forehead like he had fallen asleep on the hob of his cooker) just didn't really work as a movie.
But the powers that be looked at that movie and they saw one thing...
Spin off potential!
In a move that I am sure seemed to make a lot more sense at the time, they decided to make the spin off about Dare Devils dead girl friend, Elektra.
Elektra got killed by Bullseye, who was in turn beaten by Dare Devil, making her at best third rate in terms of badassery.
Her other big problem is, you might have guessed, being dead.
Luckily it turns out that a wise kung fu master brought her back to life.
You see the forces of good know a special kind of magic that lets you see the future and if you get really good at it you can bring people back from the dead.
Yes I know those powers seem totally unrelated, but just go with it or we will never get through this thing.
Interestingly, the kung fu master is blind, but not reference to the fact this is the same gimic as Dare Devil is ever made.
In fact no reference to old DD (not drunk duck, Dare Devil, stay with me!) is ever made.
I assumed this is largely because the films budget stetched to about £5.50 plus what ever was found down the back of the sofa and could not afford to get Affleck back but apparantly he actually has a cameo in a deleted scene that they cut from the final film.
To be honest though, I don't know why they bothered to use the name Elektra. Her role in the last film was being shitter than the baddie and getting killed. No one outside of the comics has ever heard of the character, so there is zero to be gained from the license. Why not just invent a knew character? This story, paper thin as it is, is so utterly different from Dare Devil as to make it laughable to believe they exist in the same world.
The Dare Devil film didn't have magic powers and an ancient war between the forces of good and evil (yes, they actually have that...explained in an opening monologue...it's like this movie is from a land where imagination goes to die.)
Making it link to DareDevil just raises loads of questions. Why isn't she out for vengeance on Bullseye? Why doesn't she seek out Dare Devil, who she suposedly loved? Why was this piece of shit movie ever made???
What are the forces of evil (called The Hand...yes it really is that stock) after you might wonder?
Probably the most cliche thing they could be after really.
Its a young girl who is the chosen one who can tip the balance in the war between good and evil.
Elektra is sent to kill the girl but decides to instead protect them because...
For fucks sake.
Seriously, this is the story they went with.
Its like a copy and paste of generic movie ideas.
It actually becomes almost amazing, like the perfect form of a boring, run of the mill, uninteresting story line. It is crafted with absolute precision to make sure not a single original story element creeps in at any point.
Elektra herself is weird. She is obsessive compulsive about neatness and cleaness and has CONSTANT child hood flash backs to when the main baddie killed her mum (yes...we are pulling that one out of the bag.) She is dull, unemotional and intensely boring, barely managing to express an emotion other than general grumpiness throughout the movie.
Jennifer Garner plays Elektra and as well as pulling in a truly leaden performance when it comes time to act, she is also rubbish in the fight scenes. Most of the battles are about 6 seconds long and shot so close that you can barely tell what is happening or laced with laughable wire work or slow mo, but it cant hide how feebly unconvincing she is.
Her lack of credibility as a bad as is worsened by another factor, a factor which is ironically also the reason she is in the film.
Elektra just looks too damn pretty to be a bad ass.
Her perfect make up, long shiny hair that goes in her face when she gets in a fight ( no...really), her perfectly plucked eye brows and laughably huge collagen filled lips are all more suited to someone getting ready for a magazine shoot, not a hardened killer.
Her costume is also laughable. High heels on her boots, super tight trousers and strappy bodice top, all in super-stealthy, bright, race car red.
But dont get too excited. While this helps make the film seem exploitative, its never actually exploitative enough to be really sexy, so even for spank fodder it fails badly. Just the odd unneccessary close up on her arse here and there.
As I mentioned, Elektra ends up defending this bloke and his daughter.
The bloke is so stock that the second he walked on screen my wife said "he's the love interest." My wife knows her stuff!
The guys personality is that he's a really nice guy...and thats about it. He's just nice all the time. I suppose I could add "being lame" as a personality trait...but when every character gets that you kind of have to tune it out.
Him and Elektra share exactly zero chemistry, making the scene when they suddenly kiss just really uncomfortable. Its like Elektra is kissing her brother or something, its just that awkward.
The only interesting thing about him is that I spent every scene he was in trying to work out where the hell his incredibly strange accent was meant to be from!
The man's daughter is called "The Treasure", and she is the chosen one who will tip the balance in favour of the forces of evil if they capture her.
Why she would agree to work for them and why having a girl who knows karate would some how let them take over the world is not made clear.
Whats more one of the bad guys says at one point that she used to be The Treasure, meaning the bad guys have done this before and won and yet STILL not taken over the world...so why should I care if they succeed this time?
Because I don't want to see the girl hurt? Fuck that! This brat is so irritating , mouthy and poorly written that I was just willing the bad guys to finish her off. When we first meet her she has wondered into a hosue without permission for Elektra pins her to the wall ith a knife. Her main response is to be upset that this ruined her shirt...rather than about a little thing like A WOMAN IS THROWING FUCKING KNIVES AT YOU! She begs Elektra not to tell her dad as he would "kill her if he finds out." Kill her in a way more dangerous than THROWING KNIVES AT YOU!
The girls for some reason decides she likes Elektra and wants her round...whcih makes no sense as Elektra has no personality to speak of, seems fairly bonkers and THREW A FUCKING KNIFE AT HER!
But who are our villains? Who are the evil minions of the hand?
They have a few generic ninjas in black out fits whose only achievements in the movie are -
1- turning to green fart smoke when killed
and
2- One of them hillariously kills himself by turning his head too quick and breaking his own neck. I have to wonder how he practiced doing that....
But the main baddies are a team of 5 douche bags who I will describe one at a time...see if you start to spot a theme.
STONE- A really big black guy who is super tough and strong. Early in his fight with Elektra he throws a club at her, breaking a big tree that falls over and squashes him into the green fart smoke.
So he killed himself by accident.
KINKOU- A bad guy so lame that when the main villain is naming his helpers he doesn't say this guys name. I had to look on wikipedia to find out what he was called. I can see why he gets not respect though. His power appears to be "knows a bit of Karate" (the young girl he is meant to be capturing kicks his ass) and "brought a oouple of knives" (He gets disarmed of one by the Dad who then throws it at him and killed him.)
So he gets taken out by a young girl and a guy whose not a warrior of any kind...and no one can remember his name.
TATTOO- This guy can turn his tattoos of animals into real animals to send after people, act as spies etc. Unfortunately while he's doing that he has to sit still meditating so during the end fight elektra just casually walks over and breaks his neck.
So he gets killed in a way that can only be described as "casually".
TYPHOID- This chick also gets disrespect from her boss. When they are about to go after the good guys the leader says he wont be defeated by " mere woman" while Typhoid is right there! This is not meant to be a plot point, its just shit writing as Typhoid does not react at all. Also such a statement doesn't make any sense since the whole point of the movie is to find a girl who will become the greatest warrior ever or some shit. Typhoid can cause plants around her to whiter and attacks by using lethal lesbian kisses. No really. At one point she sneaks up on Elektra and plants a big wet on on her face and then proceeds to snog her half to death. No really, this actually happens. People got paid to write this and other people saw what they wrote, thought it was great and then acted it out.
Her power is completely impractical and not actually very lethal as it takes ages to actually kill anyone (a half brick in a sock would have got the job done quicker!)
She never really has an actual fight with anyone and then cops a dagger in the head and turns to so much fart smoke.
So killed without an actual battle.
Lastly is the leader of team evil- KIRIGI!
This guy wheres a white kimono and has swords. He can move fast and occasionally gets other powers as the plot demands it.
In the most underwhelming final battle I have EVER seen on film, they do a pitiful fight sequence and Elektra stabs him when he rushes at her and throws him down a well.
These bad guys come across as the biggest bunch of losers and no hopers I have ever seen. Why would anyone send such a team of total dorks?
It's like the movie makers realised the main character looked laughable so tried to make the baddies even more embarassing so she could believably beat them!
The movie can be broken down into two halves really.
The first half in which FUCK ALL happens.
No really, you can skip this whole bit and just start watching when the bad guy team starts chasing them and you will miss NOTHING.
As you can probably tell, the plot is so generic it is literally impossible NOT to understand whats going on, because there really IS nothing to understand that you dont already know from other, better movies.
After the first half it's just hilariously weak action scenes to a pitiful pay off.
My advice is skip to the fighty bits as they are at least good to make fun off. Anything where she is standing by a fucking lake, avoid like the plague!
This movie is so crappy and cheap its amazing it got a proper cinematic release. but it really did!
Someone thought this was good enough to go on the big screen, when in actual fact it is not good enough to go on toilet paper.
It was a bit shit, wasn't it?
I mean a blind super hero with super senses sound kinda cool...but the film was just pretty pants.
Ben Affleck beating up Colin Farrell (who had a bullseye branded onto his forehead like he had fallen asleep on the hob of his cooker) just didn't really work as a movie.
But the powers that be looked at that movie and they saw one thing...
Spin off potential!
In a move that I am sure seemed to make a lot more sense at the time, they decided to make the spin off about Dare Devils dead girl friend, Elektra.
Elektra got killed by Bullseye, who was in turn beaten by Dare Devil, making her at best third rate in terms of badassery.
Her other big problem is, you might have guessed, being dead.
Luckily it turns out that a wise kung fu master brought her back to life.
You see the forces of good know a special kind of magic that lets you see the future and if you get really good at it you can bring people back from the dead.
Yes I know those powers seem totally unrelated, but just go with it or we will never get through this thing.
Interestingly, the kung fu master is blind, but not reference to the fact this is the same gimic as Dare Devil is ever made.
In fact no reference to old DD (not drunk duck, Dare Devil, stay with me!) is ever made.
I assumed this is largely because the films budget stetched to about £5.50 plus what ever was found down the back of the sofa and could not afford to get Affleck back but apparantly he actually has a cameo in a deleted scene that they cut from the final film.
To be honest though, I don't know why they bothered to use the name Elektra. Her role in the last film was being shitter than the baddie and getting killed. No one outside of the comics has ever heard of the character, so there is zero to be gained from the license. Why not just invent a knew character? This story, paper thin as it is, is so utterly different from Dare Devil as to make it laughable to believe they exist in the same world.
The Dare Devil film didn't have magic powers and an ancient war between the forces of good and evil (yes, they actually have that...explained in an opening monologue...it's like this movie is from a land where imagination goes to die.)
Making it link to DareDevil just raises loads of questions. Why isn't she out for vengeance on Bullseye? Why doesn't she seek out Dare Devil, who she suposedly loved? Why was this piece of shit movie ever made???
What are the forces of evil (called The Hand...yes it really is that stock) after you might wonder?
Probably the most cliche thing they could be after really.
Its a young girl who is the chosen one who can tip the balance in the war between good and evil.
Elektra is sent to kill the girl but decides to instead protect them because...
For fucks sake.
Seriously, this is the story they went with.
Its like a copy and paste of generic movie ideas.
It actually becomes almost amazing, like the perfect form of a boring, run of the mill, uninteresting story line. It is crafted with absolute precision to make sure not a single original story element creeps in at any point.
Elektra herself is weird. She is obsessive compulsive about neatness and cleaness and has CONSTANT child hood flash backs to when the main baddie killed her mum (yes...we are pulling that one out of the bag.) She is dull, unemotional and intensely boring, barely managing to express an emotion other than general grumpiness throughout the movie.
Jennifer Garner plays Elektra and as well as pulling in a truly leaden performance when it comes time to act, she is also rubbish in the fight scenes. Most of the battles are about 6 seconds long and shot so close that you can barely tell what is happening or laced with laughable wire work or slow mo, but it cant hide how feebly unconvincing she is.
Her lack of credibility as a bad as is worsened by another factor, a factor which is ironically also the reason she is in the film.
Elektra just looks too damn pretty to be a bad ass.
Her perfect make up, long shiny hair that goes in her face when she gets in a fight ( no...really), her perfectly plucked eye brows and laughably huge collagen filled lips are all more suited to someone getting ready for a magazine shoot, not a hardened killer.
Her costume is also laughable. High heels on her boots, super tight trousers and strappy bodice top, all in super-stealthy, bright, race car red.
But dont get too excited. While this helps make the film seem exploitative, its never actually exploitative enough to be really sexy, so even for spank fodder it fails badly. Just the odd unneccessary close up on her arse here and there.
As I mentioned, Elektra ends up defending this bloke and his daughter.
The bloke is so stock that the second he walked on screen my wife said "he's the love interest." My wife knows her stuff!
The guys personality is that he's a really nice guy...and thats about it. He's just nice all the time. I suppose I could add "being lame" as a personality trait...but when every character gets that you kind of have to tune it out.
Him and Elektra share exactly zero chemistry, making the scene when they suddenly kiss just really uncomfortable. Its like Elektra is kissing her brother or something, its just that awkward.
The only interesting thing about him is that I spent every scene he was in trying to work out where the hell his incredibly strange accent was meant to be from!
The man's daughter is called "The Treasure", and she is the chosen one who will tip the balance in favour of the forces of evil if they capture her.
Why she would agree to work for them and why having a girl who knows karate would some how let them take over the world is not made clear.
Whats more one of the bad guys says at one point that she used to be The Treasure, meaning the bad guys have done this before and won and yet STILL not taken over the world...so why should I care if they succeed this time?
Because I don't want to see the girl hurt? Fuck that! This brat is so irritating , mouthy and poorly written that I was just willing the bad guys to finish her off. When we first meet her she has wondered into a hosue without permission for Elektra pins her to the wall ith a knife. Her main response is to be upset that this ruined her shirt...rather than about a little thing like A WOMAN IS THROWING FUCKING KNIVES AT YOU! She begs Elektra not to tell her dad as he would "kill her if he finds out." Kill her in a way more dangerous than THROWING KNIVES AT YOU!
The girls for some reason decides she likes Elektra and wants her round...whcih makes no sense as Elektra has no personality to speak of, seems fairly bonkers and THREW A FUCKING KNIFE AT HER!
But who are our villains? Who are the evil minions of the hand?
They have a few generic ninjas in black out fits whose only achievements in the movie are -
1- turning to green fart smoke when killed
and
2- One of them hillariously kills himself by turning his head too quick and breaking his own neck. I have to wonder how he practiced doing that....
But the main baddies are a team of 5 douche bags who I will describe one at a time...see if you start to spot a theme.
STONE- A really big black guy who is super tough and strong. Early in his fight with Elektra he throws a club at her, breaking a big tree that falls over and squashes him into the green fart smoke.
So he killed himself by accident.
KINKOU- A bad guy so lame that when the main villain is naming his helpers he doesn't say this guys name. I had to look on wikipedia to find out what he was called. I can see why he gets not respect though. His power appears to be "knows a bit of Karate" (the young girl he is meant to be capturing kicks his ass) and "brought a oouple of knives" (He gets disarmed of one by the Dad who then throws it at him and killed him.)
So he gets taken out by a young girl and a guy whose not a warrior of any kind...and no one can remember his name.
TATTOO- This guy can turn his tattoos of animals into real animals to send after people, act as spies etc. Unfortunately while he's doing that he has to sit still meditating so during the end fight elektra just casually walks over and breaks his neck.
So he gets killed in a way that can only be described as "casually".
TYPHOID- This chick also gets disrespect from her boss. When they are about to go after the good guys the leader says he wont be defeated by " mere woman" while Typhoid is right there! This is not meant to be a plot point, its just shit writing as Typhoid does not react at all. Also such a statement doesn't make any sense since the whole point of the movie is to find a girl who will become the greatest warrior ever or some shit. Typhoid can cause plants around her to whiter and attacks by using lethal lesbian kisses. No really. At one point she sneaks up on Elektra and plants a big wet on on her face and then proceeds to snog her half to death. No really, this actually happens. People got paid to write this and other people saw what they wrote, thought it was great and then acted it out.
Her power is completely impractical and not actually very lethal as it takes ages to actually kill anyone (a half brick in a sock would have got the job done quicker!)
She never really has an actual fight with anyone and then cops a dagger in the head and turns to so much fart smoke.
So killed without an actual battle.
Lastly is the leader of team evil- KIRIGI!
This guy wheres a white kimono and has swords. He can move fast and occasionally gets other powers as the plot demands it.
In the most underwhelming final battle I have EVER seen on film, they do a pitiful fight sequence and Elektra stabs him when he rushes at her and throws him down a well.
These bad guys come across as the biggest bunch of losers and no hopers I have ever seen. Why would anyone send such a team of total dorks?
It's like the movie makers realised the main character looked laughable so tried to make the baddies even more embarassing so she could believably beat them!
The movie can be broken down into two halves really.
The first half in which FUCK ALL happens.
No really, you can skip this whole bit and just start watching when the bad guy team starts chasing them and you will miss NOTHING.
As you can probably tell, the plot is so generic it is literally impossible NOT to understand whats going on, because there really IS nothing to understand that you dont already know from other, better movies.
After the first half it's just hilariously weak action scenes to a pitiful pay off.
My advice is skip to the fighty bits as they are at least good to make fun off. Anything where she is standing by a fucking lake, avoid like the plague!
This movie is so crappy and cheap its amazing it got a proper cinematic release. but it really did!
Someone thought this was good enough to go on the big screen, when in actual fact it is not good enough to go on toilet paper.