Why is this movie getting a bad rap? - Elektra (2005) Discussion

[–] Definition00 18 years ago

It's the script that kills this movie. The direction and performances are pretty good but the plot, the story telling, and the pathetic villians really tear this movie apart.

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[–] Billy_Makes_You_Wanna_Spitfire 18 years ago

Well read my previous post and you will understand what i mean.

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[–] TheReaver88 18 years ago

ok, i just saw this movie, and i was surprised that i liked it a lot.
i never read the comics, but i thought the villains were pretty good. the acting was good by the leads, but not so much by the supporting roles (stick, kirigi, etc.) and i thought the directing was ok. i have to go with the writing as being the biggest problem. as said above, there were a lot of weak attempts at memorable quotes. Jennifer garner did a fantastic job, and i think she made the movie.

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[–] Billy_Makes_You_Wanna_Spitfire 18 years ago

Yeah she made the movie. I did think they had some cheesy one liners though.
some people didnt even have a line.
e.g. kinkou and tattoo only said something like the assassin is here. and thats it. should have more vocabulary range.
Other than that i thought the movie was great

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[–] joeva_za 18 years ago

while I did not think Elektra was brilliant I do think it gets an unfair bad rap. I thought that it was a fairly entertaining B-movie and Ms. Garner was quite good with the script that she was given and the special effects (especially tattoo) were very good.

Mainly as others have pointed out perhaps it is that teenage boys the target audience largely cannot identify with a female lead character / story unless it is gratuitously violent / sexual.

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[–] dayraven-1 18 years ago

i'll add one more tip for you various "so it didn't follow the commics, it didn't have to," jackholes...if it weren't for the comic having a huge fan following, there'd be no freakin' movie, so yes, it ought to follow the comic at least a little right? would have been happy showing up to "Troy" to find out it's about a boy named Ulysses with a talking dog named Achilles and they're playing baseball against the neighborhood bully, Agamemmnon? that's about how badly this movie shat on the elektra fanbase. and if the target audience for the movie was boys, that explains a lot of why this movie crapped to the last, cuz elektra the comic, while popular w/ males, has an enormous female following.

There are worse things than death, and I can do all of them.

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[–] its-okay-to-stare 18 years ago

I honestly LOVED this movie, even though they made Jennifer Garner act so one dimensional when she she has such a range. But all in all I was happy with this movie. I would have prefered longer, more intense fight scenes but I got what I paid for. The movie was pretty damn good. I honestly feel it is better than Daredevil.

But to all those who call this THE worst Super Hero movie......CATWOMAN is NO WAY IN HELL, better than this movie or probably any movie as a matter of fact....

I truely feel this is one better halves of Super Hero movies.

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[–] Billy_Makes_You_Wanna_Spitfire 18 years ago

Elektta is alot better than other comic to movie adaption.
E.G. THE HULK,CATWOMAN,BATMAN AND ROBIN,
Elektra is better than all of these film, but its kinda one dimensional and only appeals to a small minority of people

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[–] GRUMPYNZ 18 years ago

This movie was soooo boring. And I don't think i've ever seen a "superhero" movie where the main character just doesn't seem to be that great. I mean she died in Daredevil, Typhoid neraly killed her, Stick could beat her, and the only fights she won against decent opponents seemed to be by luck eg. sticking her Sai out as that guy with the swords moved into her (sorry i can't remember his name). Terrible movie.

"Nazis. I hate these guys."
-Indiana Jones

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[–] Billy_Makes_You_Wanna_Spitfire 18 years ago

"she won against decent opponents seemed to be by luck eg"
Its not sheer luck at all i dont no if you bothered the watch it and look at it correctly but she knew the giy was going to run at her so she impailed him its not luck its strategic.
Yeah she died in daredevil, BTW this isnt daredevil, shes trained her skills shes a professional, typhoid mary can kill pretty much anyone just because she caught her off giard doesnt make it bad in fact it was quiet a plot twist.

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[–] Warmfire 18 years ago

OK, I have to admit that I really liked this movie, but I often like movies that other people consider bad. Still, I think the movie could have been improved if:

1) They had her in a better costume. I cannot believe they chose that costume for her. Watching the special features showed me they had better ideas to choose from and I cannot believe they chose that one instead. Love the color (red is my favorite), not the design.

2) Better quality fight scenes between Kirogi and Elektra and Typhoid and Elektra. They could have learned a few things from the Matrix trilogy and Kill Bill (my favorite being the fight between Uma and Vivica Fox).

3) Make the hero more interesting than the villains. The villains were awesome in this.

4) We spent way too much time with Elektra when her availability to us as an audience should have been less so in the beginning. Right after the first scene when she assassinates that evil guy sitting in front of the fire, we go home with her. Bad idea. Make her more interesting by starting with other people thinking and talking about her more often than we see her and then gradually let us into her life over more of the movie.

5) The OCD issue was completely unnecessary to the plot and totally annoying. Maybe the writers and director thought it was interesting but it was boring as hell and had no point. I think they were trying for a quirk but overshot and came up with a mental illness. An interesting quirk would have worked better than a mental illness.

6) I actually liked this aspect of the film, but for a wider success margin they might have wanted to refrain from having Elektra be alone in that house and examine her issues then. For those scenes to be triggered in an action sequence would have been more interesting, much like they did in the major fight with Kirogi. Then, of course, those flashbacks would have had to be more concise but that's OK.

All in all, I still liked the movie - flaws and all.

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[–] ktr8rmv814 17 years ago

I think it's because the movie didn't appeal to all. And that's ok. The only problem with me was the whole lack of DD references. I know they wanted her to be independant, but there should've been a couple. BUT on the DVD, they do have a deleted scene with Matt Murdock so it's pretty awsome. If they would have kept that in, a lot more people would've liked it because of that. I have no conflict with this movie. Action was awsome, acting was great, Garner is really awsome, and the supporting roles are pretty decent. They should've casted someone that Garner had mre chemistry with. LOVED the movie. Love it more and more everytime I watch it. Also, people didn't want the whole Sci-Fi aspect, Aeon Flux was also hated because of this, but I love them both. They both also shoped vulnerablity and I dont think the macho macho's liked that about their superheroes...

VICTIM:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479204/
Babysitter Wanted:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0819755/

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[–] indicomp_ 17 years ago

I just saw this movie, and since this thread is going on 9 pages pretty much I figure it’s possible that someone might have already mentioned the reason I’m about to say about why this movie didn’t do well. If so, I guest just ignore mine. It’s because the lead role, the hero and the saviour, is a woman, and it doesn’t seem like people are ready to accept a woman in that role, which is sort of disappointing. If you think about it, this movie got a bad rating, Catwoman is on the Bottom 250 of IMDB’s list, and by my standards, that was a pretty good film as well. Both of them, however, have a female lead, more specifically, a female hero. Daredevil, which was pretty bad btw, did better than Elektra, not by much, but still. So, that’s my theory of why it didn’t do nearly as well as it should have.

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[–] plundstr20 17 years ago

Oh please... the reason Elektra didnt do well of is considered a bad movie isnt because the hero is a woman. It is because everything you can do wrong in a movie was done wrong! I could try to point out what was wrong with it but realising that I couldnt name one thing that was good about it says a whole lot more...

Oh and btw, regarding female action heroes... most are portrayed very badly on screen. So the wind blowing in Gardners hair while she stands there trying to look menacing for 1h30m isnt my idea of an action hero. You want a female action herom check out Sigourney Weaver in Aliens. Now SHE kicked ass!

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] maxpower10 17 years ago

I haven't read the first 8 pages, if this answer has already been given, let me apologize in advance.

I thought one of the reasons this movie got a bad rap was because the Elektra in the movie is nothing like the Elektra in the comics.

The comic book Elektra is a cold, high priced assasin. Jennifer Garner's Elektra is a good martial artist.

I liked the movie, even though I realize it was not at all faithful to the original source.

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] turock 17 years ago

It sucked in my opinion. Jennifer Garner is just another pretty face who is not a great actress by any stretch of the imagination. I understand that shes some kind of immortal assasin or whatever, but none of the bad guys put up any kind of decent fight. I mean one guy gets killed by having a tree fall on him. It was just plain cheesy. The only good acting in the movie was from Goran and his charactes daughter. It was a pretty movie but not much more, yeah supergirl sucked, and Punisher was well just not true to the comics from what im told by people who read them.

After some of the more recent comics to film like X-Men the first movie, and Blade that turned out great and a few others this one just felt like it got the short end of the stick. Like the production company said ok we need a big action movie it dosent have to be great it barley weven has to be good, it just has to have a big name and it will sell itself.

Even Daredevil was better but not by much, but the movie The Hulk is by far the biggest blunder lately, think if they make a sequal to Elektra its going to suck unless they spend some time on an actual script, and mab spend a few bucks on hireing a fight coriographer.

To anyone who dosent like my spelling your free to pull out the spell check and repost it for me.

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] Suntory_Times 17 years ago

Well, i'm one who strongly disliked this film for several reasons. The acting is not strong (there is no real seen character developement, only told character developemnt), the writting is poor and unfocused about a silly and pretentious story, the directing is just pure atrocious (I honestly don't know were to start on the drecting), the quick cuts to the poor interaction between actors also bring the film down, the cinematography is poorly composed and simply boring as is the story. The action is also not at all exciting and the CGI is also terrible.

I would give this film a 3, an that's bieng kind.

For relaxing times, make it Suntory time...

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[–] ColonelDEH 17 years ago

I didn't expect a work of art so I can excuse the B level acting and uninspired direction. But I do expect to be entertained by the action in a movie like this. The fight scenes weren't up to par and the CGI was terrible.

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[–] Cheddar 17 years ago

The problem with a movie like this is that for it to be made, it can't be too much of any one thing. If it tries to be too much of a character study, then the studio is going to say it's too dull. You can click in any trait and it seems like the movie is too afraid to be that.

The sad thing is that's probably what gets this kind of a script turned into a movie. It's safe -- it doesn't take a chance by going in any one direction.

The problem is that after you watch it, you're not terribly moved by it.

It had its best chance at succeeding with the relationship between Elektra and Abby. The two of them were good together but the movie didn't let enough substance build.

Too bad because there was a good movie in there somewhere. Wrong director and wrong writer, I'm afraid.

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[–] dayraven-1 16 years ago

i agree, if the movie had been elektra "educating" abbey in a hot tub, or maybe on the beach, exploring the depth of their "friendship," as it were, it would have been awesome. instead it was a shxt sandwhich.

There are worse things than death, and I can do all of them.

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[–] 17 years ago

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