Pros
The big pro goes to casting Terence Stamp as Stick; if only they'd given him a bigger part to play. I loved The Limey. Another big plus goes to Tattoo's (Chris Ackerman) concept: I don't know whether he appeared in the Elektra comic books, but, either way, the realization of his character on film was beautiful, thrilling and creepy.
Abby's (Kirsten Prout) Indonesian warrior beads were also pretty cool. Is there such a weapon? My quick search didn't turn up much. Finally, Elektra (Jennifer Garner) was a strong female lead: they didn't go for the sex appeal or gotta-get-me-a-man angles, and should be applauded for it.
Cons
The dialogue was terrible; some of the worst I've heard in a long time, in fact. And the story, it was held together by wisps: you got the feeling, especially in the excellent opening (oh, another pro), that there was a strong backdrop for the story, but it just didn't translate. Let me say that the epic nature of the story didn't translate. You knew you were watching an epic when you sat down to any one of Peter Jackson's treatments of Tolkien's story, for example; not so here (and I use the comparison to illustrate
epiconly).
While I'm on the subject of translating to the screen, the faster-than-human fights didn't either. I think this was the biggest disappointment for me. I thought that, if nothing else, the display of martial arts would be worth the price of admission; not so. The best I saw was when Abby tried to catch Elektra off guard, and that was very brief. (And, if we're talking about the whole experience, the Ong-Bak trailer blew Elektra (2005) away in the martial arts department; can't wait to watch that one!)
Finally, while the Kirigi-turned-demon (Will Yun Lee) moment was cool the first time around (as a trick of a child's mind), it got old fast; how many times did they use it? Five? Six? *sigh*
Comments
Elektra commented on the sai as an offensive weapon, made for killing, but a quick scan of the Wikipedia entry confirms my suspicions:
[The sai can] be used effectively against a long sword by trapping the sword's blade between the sai's blade and the tsuba [unsharpened projections attached to the handle] and breaking it with a twist of the hand.
I remember that from Raphael, of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, believe it or not. :-)
O.K., further reading suggests that maybe the Wikipedia entry needs to be fleshed out. From another source:
Many believe the prongs were used to catch and trap a strike from a weapon, such as sword or a bo. Once the prongs complete the trap, the defender may use the sai to twist the attacker's weapon from his grasp or even break the weapon. However, the range and momentum generated by a longer weapon, such as the bo, would make this a risky defense. Although this type of defense may be effective against a short weapon, such as a knife[, the prongs] are used to protect the hand from injury.
Setting that issue aside, this quote is in stark contrast to Elektra's:
Even though the sai are sometimes called short swords, they were not used as a sword would be used. Sai were primarily a defensive weapon...
As a final comment, Natassia Malthe was billed as Typhoid. She was Typhoid Mary, right?
