If you have seen Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), you might have noted that Jennifer Garner is in it as the sometimes hero, sometimes villain, Marvel character Elektra.  If you were searching your comic book movie memory banks for why she might seem familiar, that is because she appeared in two now obscure entries in the now defunct Fox Marvel franchise.  The first was Daredevil (2003).  If this is fuzzy to you, it is because the film is pretty bad, and they cut the actor playing the title character, Ben Affleck, from any further productions.  Amazingly enough, despite her dying in the end, they gave his love interest a follow up, which is how we get today’s entry, Elektra (2005).  I give you this background because the movie does not, as you shall soon see.

If you had kept track of Elektra from the last film, the first thing to figure out is how she could be alive.  Yet, that does not seem to matter to the makers of this flick.  Instead, we open with some mythical story about a warrior woman who is meant to bring balance to the eternal war between good and evil.  In case you are wondering, it is not Elektra Natchios, her full name.  Or maybe she is the one?  I do not know.  What I can tell you is that she is an assassin, which is how she is introduced.  The person she has been paid to kill is DeMarco (Jason Isaacs).  Who is DeMarco and why does he have a contract on his life?  I have no idea.  After she has done her deed, she is visited by McCabe (Colin Cunningham), her agent that brings her all her jobs.  He comes with payment from the last assignment and news of another, this one with a hefty fee.  Although she claims to want to take some time off, the dollar amount is too high to pass, and she is off to the Pacific Northwest.  As she settles into her new accommodations awaiting the details of her target, her house is broken into by Abby Miller (Kristen Prout).  The teenager’s excuse for this bit of mischief is that the previous occupants used to let her enter as she pleased.  Elektra does not want to hear it and orders Abby to leave.  While meditating lakeside, Elektra is visited by Mark Miller (Goran Višnjić), Abby’s father.  He has come to apologize to Elektra for the incident, though the gesture is met coldly.  Just as Elektra is getting impatient to complete her task, she has another encounter with Abby.  This time, the girl will not let her neighbor say no to an invitation to spend Christmas with the Millers . . . because it is apparently December despite it being bright and green. . . .  Elektra accepts because Abby reminds the assassin of a younger version of herself (Laura Ward), who we see in flashbacks.  In one of these dream-like sequences, we witness the death of Elektra’s mother (Jana Mitsoula) at the hands of somebody who looks like a demon.  As it turns out, it is a man named Kirigi (Will Yun Lee).  He is the son of the head of an evil band of ninjas known as The Hand, led by Roshi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).  They are seeking the mythical woman spoken of in the beginning, and they believe Abby to be the one.  Their goal is to make her evil, and short of that, to kill her.  This is why Abby and Mark have come to this isolated place, though both sides in this long-lasting struggle appear to know the girl’s location.  Indeed, daughter and father are Elektra’s mission, but she cannot bring herself to finish it.  Instead, she phones McCabe to say that she quits.  Her mind is changed when she spots a group of killers getting off at the ferry.  She is able to make it back to the Miller’s house to protect them, and now they are on the run together.  Because she has had experience dealing with The Hand, she knows to bring the Millers to her former sensei, a blind man called Stick (Terence Stamp).  Initially, he does not assist them, causing them to continue to flee.  The need for escape becomes more imperative when Elektra discovers that they are now being tracked by Kirigi personally, along with his band of people with special powers.  Hence, Elektra turns to a reluctant McCabe, but they are once again found.  Her agent tries to allow them to escape, but they are caught running through the woods.  This time, they are saved by Stick and his cadre of good ninjas.  From there, they are taken to Stick’s school where Abby begins learning martial arts as Elektra had done at that age.  In conversing with Stick, he admits that much of this had been done to Elektra to prove to her that she is not the bad person she thinks she is.  Yet, she does not want Abby to grow up to be the kind of foot soldier Stick wants, but rather to have choices.  Hence, Elektra challenges Kirigi to combat, the winner essentially controlling Abby’s fate.  Being the precocious girl she is, Abby follows Elektra to the older woman’s ancestral estate where the duel is to happen . . . which is conveniently in the same geographical area.  Anyway, there are a lot kicks, punches, and stabs, the long and short of which is Elektra defeats Kirigi and his minions.  During the chaos, Abby had been poisoned by one of these baddies, the aptly named Typhoid (Natassia Malthe), but is revived by Elektra.  With that, Elektra bids adieu to everyone and the movie ends.

Speaking of endings, Elektra comes nearly at the conclusion of Marvel’s run of non-Cinematic Universe films before the release of Iron Man (2008).  In fact, you might notice that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) guru, Kevin Feige, is listed as a producer for Elektra.  If you look back at where these movies were then compared to now, you will become aware of the battle that took place to get some of them made, no matter their quality.  The battle I am more interested in as a Catholic reviewer is the mythical one between good and evil discussed in the beginning.  One important, spiritual point made when this is described is how this ongoing war is a broad one, but also takes place discreetly in each of our hearts.  There is a great deal of truth in this statement.  Today while listening to Father Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year podcast, he went over Genesis 25-26, specifically when Jacob essentially tricks Esau into selling the latter’s inheritance for a bowl of beans.  Neither person is blameless in this scenario.  Esau is too eager to part with what is his from God, while Jacob manipulates his hungry brother for personal gain.  Father Mike uses this example to discuss how often we choose that which is contrary to doing good.  We get caught up in the expediency of the moment instead of understanding the broader context.  In other words, we want the immediate thing regardless of the consequences instead of remembering to stick to our path.  Elektra personifies this by breaking with Stick’s teaching at a younger age.  He is her best student, but she is impatient to be moving on with her life instead of continuing to learn from her master.  As such, he sends her away, later explaining his reasoning with the sage saying that some lessons must be lived to be understood.  What this means is that our actions have consequences, one way or another.  By practicing faith in God, you can learn to deal with any situation.

On the other hand, there is no situation where you need to watch Elektra.  I doubt Marvel would want you to, anyway.  They gave Garner’s iteration of the character a sendoff in Deadpool & Wolverine, and are apparently recasting her with Gal Gadot.  Hence, why bother with another run-of-the-mill superhero movie?