Not Even Mourning Becomes It: Day #024 - Elektra (2005)
Viewed January 24, 2006
(sung to the tune of “Maria” from The Sound of Music)
She kills a guy, then starts to cry.
Her costume is all red.
She’s got some kind of ninja skills
And came back from the dead.
But in the end all she wants
Is to play mommy for some kid.
What kind of tough assassin is Elektra?
She’s got herself an agent
And a mentor who’s named Stick.
She’s haunted by her mother’s death
And seems a little thick.
I hate to have to say it
But it came to me quite quick:
Elektra may be simply beyond saving.
I’d hoped I’d find a pleasant thing to say.
But Elektra? There’s no way.
How do you solve a problem like Elektra?
What could have saved the movie from its fate?
Could anything in the world have saved Elektra?
A total rewrite? A viable cast? No girl?
Nobody on this film can grasp the concept
Of telling a story worth the time to tell.
Or how to make it feel
Like it was remotely real.
How could you tell this story like you should?
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Elektra?
When it can help make Catwoman look good?
When I watched it I felt pain
In my heart and in my brain
And I felt I couldn’t watch a moment more.
Incomprehensible, unclever,
Underwritten, lucid never.
It’s a horror! A disaster! It’s a bore!
Jennie Garner is a mess
Of indecision and distress.
She should really have left bad enough alone.
Terrance Stamp should be ashamed
To latch this movie to his name.
He’s been wasted! He’s been tarnished!
He’s a drone!
How do you solve a problem like Elektra?
What could have saved the movie from its fate?
Could anything in the world have saved Elektra?
A new director? A different look? A plot?
Many a thing you know they should have not done.
Many a thing it’s clear they didn’t get.
Like what she is all about,
Or endings that don’t cop out.
They’re in it for the big payday, I’ll bet.
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Elektra?
When next to it Daredevil is pure gold?
Note: Elektra marks the third comic book or comic strip character that Terrence Stamp has portrayed on film (bringing him into a tie with Timothy Dalton for the most). By now, you should have seen Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980), but I’d like to suggest you see Modesty Blaise (1966). It’s a wonderfully wacky slice of 1960s cinema and you get to see Stamp as Modesty’s working-class right-hand man Willie Garvin. It will help take the bad taste out of your mouth. (Plus, you get to see him sing!)
January 30th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
You make me wish this was a TV movie review show and not a website.
That’d be worth the price of admission.
And yes, it’d probably still be more entertaining than Elektra (and at least as good as Laserblast.