January
13 Is Better Good Enough?

Marvel's "Elektra" comes to the big screen this Friday, at a time of year that is normally a dumping ground for lesser studio movies and the national rollouts of Oscar pics that have already played in Los Angeles and New York. "Elektra" also is a big test for Marvel and how well it can capitalize on its lesser characters. After "The Punisher" fizzled quickly and "Man-Thing" has gone AWOL, a strong b.o. take for "Elektra" would put Marvel in a good position to develop such characters further. The film is practically guaranteed to eventually turn a profit given its modest budget, but if it doesn't evoke a surprisingly strong reaction from audiences it could hurt the perceived value of the thousands of characters Marvel touts in its press releases.

The good news is that "Elektra" is not a bad film; the bad news is it is rarely rises to the level of being special. (Variety's official review, by Brian Lowry, can be found here.) The film starts off strong, with a great action sequence that echoes the classic Frank Miller black-and-white Elektra story from the old "Bizarre Adventures" magazine. It's sleek, well shot and establishes the character as the ruthless assassin comics fans have come to know and love. That they're able to maintain the tension through some fun twists and cool action for a full hour before the plot — about a young girl who's a prodigy and prophet in the war between evil ninjas The Hand and Elektra's mentor Stick — becomes overly predictable and emotional is in itself a bit of a triumph after "The Punisher."

Despite the faults in the latter parts of the script, the film is well-directed, nice to look at and has some decent performances from Jennifer Garner and Terence Stamp. Garner plays Elektra as much colder and tougher than her character on TV's "Alias," and the more convincing movie action makes Elektra more believable and more interesting than the cartoonish Sidney Bristow. But Elektra is most fun as the hard assassin and her transformation to caring protector is predictable and disappointing. That Stamp, who played General Zod in the first two "Superman" movies long long ago, is great in the small role he has is no surprise.

There's some nice touches in the film from the comics, such as members of The Hand disintegrating when they're killed. A battle with sheets flying through the air is worthy of being illustrated as a comic (perhaps in the Frank Miller "Sin City" style). The film has more supernatural elements than expected and some of the powers wielded by characters Stone and Tattoo are pretty cool in their short time on screen. They also cross the line into cheesy at times, especially with Typhoid (Mary), who could have been much more interesting than she is in her small role.

Which comes back to the main problem with the character of Elektra: She was created by Frank Miller (inspired by a femme fatale from Will Eisner's classic "The Spirit" series) to be a supporting character/foil for a specific story in Daredevil and since then has rarely been interesting on her own. The bizarre brilliance of Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz's 1986 masterpiece "Elektra: Assassin" aside, the character has had two ongoing series in the past decade that have been canceled, one after 19 issues and the other after 35.

For Marvel, a surprisingly strong turnout at the box office is possible but not likely. Marvel still needs to find some kind of middle ground between the mega-hits such as "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" and the lesser-known stars of its comics. "Daredevil" was potentially such a film, but wildly varying reactions to the film make future installments beyond this spinoff seem increasingly unlikely. "Elektra" is a good low-budget spin-off, but the smaller Marvel movies need to do a better job of bringing their characters to the screen for the company to fully satisfy its audience and capitalize on the value of its most important assets.