First question: Was it better than “Daredevil?” Answer–Yes and no.
Second question: Worth your money? Answer–yes and no.
Here’s the bottom line (confusingly, I’m placing it near the top). Bottom line is, THIS is the Marvel movie that Ang Lee should have directed. This is the movie that sought to have a dreamlike quality to it, with amazing aerial kung fu acrobatics and extended battle scenes that should leave you breathless.
But the script and director didn’t deliver that. I don’t know whether it was lack of time, lack of budget, lack of ability, or a combination thereof, but it just wasn’t there.
It held my attention, I’ll give it that. I didn’t fall asleep or get bored and mentally wander off and watch “Casablanca” in my head, which is what I do with films that aren’t grabbing me. Then again–sorry, purely personal thing–I’m a sucker for Jennifer Garner, and she was in practically every scene. Indeed, the few scenes she wasn’t in were the ones where my attention did start to wander until she came back.
Even with my fondness for the actress, I am forced to admit that, to use the words of Dorothy Parker, she ran the emotional gamut from A to B. The story, such as it is, involves Elektra protecting a desirable young martial arts prodigy from the clutches of the Hand (no pun intended.) If you want to see a top notch film about a deadly woman protecting a young charge, go watch Gena Rowlands in “Gloria.”
People were coming out of the film wondering why Elektra felt inspired to protect the girl. The answer to that is actually in the script, pretty clearly. It’s not even subtext; it’s subtle as a brick. Elektra sees much of herself in the girl and wants to try and keep her out of the clutches of the Hand so that the girl won’t turn out like Elektra. In saving the girl, Elektra would be in some measure saving herself. Which might kinda sorta track if, say, Elektra had once actually been IN the Hand and the Hand had made her the way she was. Since she wasn’t and they didn’t and we’re not entirely sure why she is the way she is, we’re left with no touchstone or frame of reference. Garner is a good actress, but she doesn’t seem capable of bringing layers, shading and meanings that aren’t in the page. What she sees is what you get. So when people are wondering “why” she would care, it’s not because the script doesn’t explain, but because Garner doesn’t convey enough passion about what’s in the script to make it believable, mostly because Garner doesn’t get to act the key motivational scenes, but instead experience them in flashback to when she was a child. So she’s distanced, we’re distanced, and Garner doesn’t have the chops to make the jump and link us emotionally with the girl she was and the woman she is.
The places where the film really kick starts is anything with Terrance Stamp as Stick. I’d always seen stick more as a Burgess Meredith type, but Meredith is dead, and anyway Terrance brings his own stamp to the role (okay, THAT pun was intended) and invests all his scenes with such authority that–even though his part is even more underwritten than Garner’s–you don’t care.
Better than Daredevil? Well, yes in the sense that it’s not relentlessly depressing and wasn’t edited with a salad shooter (although I seem to be the only person on the planet who liked Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock). But no in that “Daredevil” had an okay villain in the Kingpin and an incredible villain in Bullseye. “Elektra” screamed for a bad guy with the sass and swagger of Colin Farrell. (At one point a group of Hand operatives, clad in civvies, shows up on their way to try and kill Elektra’s charges, and I swear to God, one of them looked so familiar–in shaggy black hair, sunglasses and black leather jacket–that I actually said out loud, “Good Lord, the Hand is sending in Neil Gaiman.” Which got some laughs from nearby, but now that I think on it, I believe Neil would actually make a crackerjack movie villain, and he might want to look into it if the whole writing thing doesn’t work out for him.)
Instead there’s something like five major bad guys, each of whom are only as interesting as the special effects that accompanies them or their powers (although fanboys are gonna go nuts for the thirty second sequence of Typhoid sucking face with Elektra for no reason other than to provoke fan boys into going nuts). Having five times the assassins that “Daredevil” had doesn’t make the film five times as interesting. Hëll, I’d’ve been happy to see Elektra have a throw down with someone on par with Crispin Glover’s screaming looney from the “Charlie’s Angels” films.
So it’s worth your money if you’re seeing it at matinee prices, and it’s worth it for Terrance Stamp. If I’d paid matinee prices to see it, I’m come out feeling it wasn’t the best film I’d ever seen, but worth the investment of time and money. Your opinion will probably vary based upon how big fans you are of Frank Miller, Jennifer Garner and Terrance Stamp. And red leather and lesbian kissing scenes.
Oh, as we emerged from the theater, we were greeted with huge posters advertising the film of Frank Miller’s “Sin City.” Now THAT looks interesting.
PAD
• 
If you want to see a top notch film about a deadly woman protecting a young charge, go watch Gena Rowlands in “Gloria.”
I loved that movie, Gena Rowlands kicked all kinds of mobster butt in that. And on the subject of really bad movies that can compare with Batman & Robon, well I can point you towards the remake of Gloria starring Sharon Stone. A worse movie you may never see.
I saw Batman and Robin at the dollar theater and I was so pìššëd that I wasted that dollar on that movie instead of spending it on a scratch-off lottery ticket. Worst movie in the history of, um… movie history. Ever. I dare you to find a worse movie.
Soul Man. Need I say more?
The only movie to ever make me so angry I wanted to hunt down and torture those responsable: Swimming Pool. Someone deserved to be maimed for that one.
I actually kinda liked Daredevil. Won’t be seeing Elektra though, maybe for the Fantastic Four trailer.
I’m amazed nobody’s mentioned Highlander 2 as one of the Worst Movies Ever.
“There Should Have Been Only One!”
>>>> saw Batman and Robin at the dollar theater and I was so pìššëd that I wasted that dollar on that movie instead of spending it on a scratch-off lottery ticket. Worst movie in the history of, um… movie history. Ever. I dare you to find a worse movie.
Hey, an EASY one. Speed 2! Good cast, HORRIBLE script and concept. STUPID, STUPID movie.
Tim
As long as people are listing their worst movies ever, I at last have a candidate:
NAKED SPACE
Leslie Nielsen stars in it, as was prominently featured on the cover of the used DVD my son and I bought. We figured it’s be NAKED GUN in space, or some such.
Also stars Patrick MacNee (THE PRISONER, THE AVENGERS), and Cindy Williams (Shirley from LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY).
The only time it lived up to my expectations was when the alien sings. For the rest of the time, it was a slow SF story, with bits you thought were supposed to be funny, only you weren’t laughing….
Just avoid it – or, if you don’t want to do that, you can have my copy….
RD Francis
Wait! Wait I ‘ve got it! Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) starred Richard Thomas, Robert Baughn, and George Peppard just to name a few. It was definitely trying to feed into the Star Wars phenomena.
What’s so funny to me is that Robert Vaughn practically did a reprise of the role in the late 90’s on an episode of the second Kung Fu series.
Sadly, Ben Affleck takes a lot of flack and joking by people even though he’s generally a very good actor. And I liked him as Matt Murdock.
You know, I must be the only straight guy on the planet who doesn’t understand what it is about two women kissing that gets other men all hot and bothered. I mean, the only thing that’s more stupid are the guys who get off on seeing their girl with another guy. In my mind, people who think like that are candidates for a Darwin Award.>>
One of my male co-workers gave an explanation once about why some men like to watch two women make out: it was because women know what women like in bed. In other words, if one of the women likes a paticular ‘trick’ done with her, the guy will take notes and think ‘wonder if my girlfriend/wife would like it if I did something similar with her?’
Hey, I said it was an explanation. I didn’t say it was a very good one. 🙂
As for Battle Beyond the Stars, I thought it would have been loads better if it wasn’t edited with a salad shooter. Mind you, it wouldn’t have been an enduring classic or anything, but it could have been much better than what they released in the theaters.
Chris
One of my male co-workers gave an explanation once about why some men like to watch two women make out: it was because women know what women like in bed. In other words, if one of the women likes a paticular ‘trick’ done with her, the guy will take notes and think ‘wonder if my girlfriend/wife would like it if I did something similar with her?’
By god, that’s absolutely brilliant! Instead of asking my girlfriend or wife what she likes , I’ll coerce her into having sex with a woman so I can take notes.
Must be the reason why some guys like to watch their girlfriends have sex with other guys too. To take notes on technique.
Ladies and gentlmen, the Darwin Awards for sex goes to… heterosexual males.
Well you can count me in the group of straight males who don’t get the attraction so many have for lesbian scenes. It’s always the part in a pørņø movie I fast forward through…I mean, the part I WOULD fast forward through if I WATCHED those things which I certainly DON’T and…and..um…I’ll be over here…
Re: Battle Beyond The Stars
You know, I actually remember George Peppard in that move, in a baddly written immitation of Han Solo flying in and shooting Vader off Skywalkers tale, saying, “…Space Cowboy, from the planet Earth” with far too much gusto. Whoever gave that movie the green light should be forced to watch it for a week straight.
Re: Highlander 2
“The Planet Zeist.” Zeist? Zeist. To this day I’m convinced that ‘Zeist’ is that foamy stuff what sits on top of your beer.
I often wonder what lowest common denominator makes these decisions. There should be a new item in the credits of all movies: “If this fild sucks, redefines stupid, or otherwise doesn’t live up to the hype call so-and-so at (inser the schmucks phone number).”
Oh, and on the subject of pørņ…
I haven’t watched a pørņ film since the advent of the DVD. The last thing I want is the Special Widescreen Directors Unrated Platinum Series Edition with 26 hours of never before seen, extra, behinds the scenes, oooohOOOooh we did it with computers, “The Making Of” featurette, bonus material, but you have to click on the leading lady’s left tit in the Extra Features sub-menu in the “Commentary” section after turning off the sub-titles. In French.
After all that I wouldn’t even care about the two women.
Although, wouldn’t the director and (snicker) “writer’s” commenmtary be a hoot on a pørņ DVD? I mean, what would the writer be able to say? “Yeah, here I was trying to convey the inherent human conflict of a women who has ordered a pizza but doesn’t have the money to pay for it.”
And the director could fill us in on the wacky behind the scene stories “Originally we were going to go with a trained Donkey in this scene but he got busted on the way in from Tiajuana when they discovered 12 condoms full of cocaine in his stomach. Turned out he was a mule. So we went with Ron Jeremy and the actress was so drunk she couldn’t tell the difference. You’d think she would have noticed the extra body hair.”
Actually, this all sounds pretty entertaining…
And I’m gonna defend BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS!. It had Sybil Danning in an impossibly skimpy outfit! Not too shabby! It’s got a John Sayles script that rips off THE SEVEN SAMURAI! It has a really nice James Horner score and special effects by future King of the World James Cameron! Did I mention Sybil Danning’s outfit? The special effects were so much better than anything else that Corman had ever produced that he has reused them in almost everu movie he has made since.
Interestingly (well, to me) the title was also used as an alternate for THE GREEN SLIME. Now THERE was a piece of crap, though it did have a snappy them song and was directed by the genius who later made the brilliant BATTLE ROYALE.
On bad movies: Although it’s in the category of “so bad it’s good,” the worst movie ever made goes to “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” You’ve gotta admire Ed Wood giving top billing to Bela Lugosi when he’s dead before shooting begins, and splices in home video footage of Lugosi walking around in a cape. Not to mention literally cardboard sets and props.
On Gaiman: How about a film version of Sandman? Although it would be cool to see Gaiman as a villain, I don’t think it’d ever happen. Unless PAD got some momentum for something along the lines of “Comic Book: The Movie.”
Chris
Bill:
And I’m gonna defend BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS!. It had Sybil Danning in an impossibly skimpy outfit! Not too shabby! It’s got a John Sayles script that rips off THE SEVEN SAMURAI! It has a really nice James Horner score and special effects by future King of the World James Cameron! Did I mention Sybil Danning’s outfit?
Dude, come on. It had John Saxon in it. If they could have just gotten William Shatner, they would have had every over-actor in Hollywood at the time. Well, okay, I’m generalizing. Not EVERY over-actor.
BTW: Speaking of Cowboy Pete, Pad, are you planning to add Battlestar Galactica to your Cowboy Pete Roundups? I’d love to know what you think of the new show. If you’ve mentioned it in the past, sorry, I must have missed it.
So far I really only have two bones of contention with it. I hate that that made Starbuck a woman, and aside from one lone black woman on the Galactica the black race on Caprica is now extinct. Guess Richard Pryor was right.
eclark,
Even as I type this I’m watching the Battlestar Galactica marathon on SciFi. Me likey.
Yeah, this would be a great addition to Cowboy Pete.
Bill,
Yeah, i was just posting on the SciFi .com BSG board and they had a pict of a future episode that showed a pilots briefing. Lots of minorities represented their, so now I’m just mad that Starbuck is a basically just a nicely shaped man with tits. Why the hëll do they do that to women? Why couldn’t she be more like B5’s Ivanova?
Ed,
My wife had the exact same complaint. It didn’t bother her that Starbuck was now a woman but that she was pretty much the same character. So what’s the point?
I have more of a problem with the whole “Cylons that are so much like humans that you can’t tell them apart” idea. If they are making themselves like us down to the molecules why bother hating us? Even if we ARE primitive, I mean, if I get a nice shiney cyborg body I’m not going to start abusing my toaster.
Also, a whole episode looking for water? I’m no atronomer, though, heh, I teach it, but isn’t the universe pretty much FULL of the stuff?
Well, it’s full of hydrogen anyway. Finding the combination of hydrogen and oxygen doesn’t seem to be a small task. Just take our own solar system for example. So far, the only known source of water is Earth. In fact, methane seems to be more plentiful. Still I suspect that if Earth has water and Earth came from the same place as all the other polanets, they have water as well.
this was posted up earlier and I thought I’d address it. I believe that Robert Rodriguez, the director of Sin city, wrote the score for Kill Bill two for only, and only charged tarentino one dollar. In return Tarentino directed one scene of Sin City for Rodreguez and only charged one dollar for the work.
The girl on girl action being discussed, it’s hot when two attractive women make out. It’s hot when two attractive men make out. It’s hot when an attractive man makes out with an attractive woman. It’s just hot when two attractive people couple. Anyone who says different (though entitled to their own opinion) is rejecting a very base part of their humanity and sexuality.
And finally. I would agree that Daredevil is in fact one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen, but surprisingly I don’t think it has anything to do with Afflec. Afflec really cares about the character and you can see that in his performance. It’s the rest of the movie that treats it like crap. The story was horrendous full of holes, and takes the worst part of the comic book and put in on screen, horrible directing, visually boring and derivative (excetp for daredevil’s “vision” that was cool), and has a soundtrack with a shelf life of one minute.
Anyway, that’s just me. You decide.
Would Daredevil have been a better movie if they had started off small with his origin and used the likes of Stilt-Man, Eel, Mr. Fear, and Purple Man, then worked their way up to the likes of Bullseye and the Kingpin?
Would it have hurt to have had Karen Page instead of Elektra?
Steve Chung
eclarke, you missed the idea/point by just a tad. The guy does not get his girl/wife to have sex with another woman and take notes, he watches two other women doing it, take notes, and then goes home and suprises his sweetie with a new trick he’s ‘heard’ about. At least I think that was the general idea behind this co-worker’s thoughts.
And in case you were wondering, this guy is around 21 years old. Which may explain some of it. . . . .
Chris
“Just take our own solar system for example. So far, the only known source of water is Earth.”
Actually, I’m pretty sure that it’s more accurate to say that the Earth is the only known source of LIQUID water. Mars has ice as do comets and some of the other moons and planets. I’m assuming the Galactican’s high tech know-how includes the process of melting. 🙂
“It’s just hot when two attractive people couple. Anyone who says different (though entitled to their own opinion) is rejecting a very base part of their humanity and sexuality.”
Oh great, now we have people telling us what is hot for them is hot for us or we are living in denial. Wonderful. Care to clue me in on my favorite color while you’re at it?
Actually, I’m pretty sure that it’s more accurate to say that the Earth is the only known source of LIQUID water. Mars has ice as do comets and some of the other moons and planets. I’m assuming the Galactican’s high tech know-how includes the process of melting.
Well, you do realize that water isn’t the only liquid that can freeze to ice, right. Methane, for example, can freeze. Hydrogen, itself can freeze, as well as nitrogen. and all three have a liquid state.
I personally did not like Ben Affleck as Daredevil. He has the acting capabilites of plywood.
I’m not much of a Jennifer Garner fan either. She too has the acting capabilities of plywood.
Did I just repeat myself? Anyways…
I haven’t seen Elektra yet, but my friends and PAD seem to share the same views of the film, so I just might check it out.
Yeah, I know that other things can freeze (the martian ice caps are mostly frozen CO2) but I’m pretty sure that ice is plentiful in the solar system.
Anyway, they should be able to synthesize H2O from the hydrogen and oxygen, being as they have faster than light travel and all…then again, I would have thought they’d have evolved beyond suit and ties so what do I know?
WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER SUPERHERO
* out of *****
ONE out of FIVE
A movie with assassins and ninjas battling it out could be rife with
pop entertainment possibilities and a healthy serving of
ultraviolence. Assassins and ninjas are inherently pretty cool and
one would have to screw up pretty royally to make the concept suck.
Yet it has happened and this disaster is called Elektra.
A spin off of the Daredevil movie (yet without a single mention of
Daredevil present), Elektra may just represent the nadir of Marvel
Comics movie adaptations. It’s lifeless, at times incomprehensible,
not enough bloodletting for a movie about assassins and ninjas and
sometimes outright laughable. This isn’t Spider-Man 2, that’s for
darn sure.
Elektra begins with her wiping out some generic thugs in a bloodless
manner, devoid of any violence or impact. The best thing about this
bit is Jason Isaacs playing her intended target, and that’s only
because the British born actor does a great American accent. If
you’re noticing an accent, then the movie is in trouble.
After a weak opening the movie proceeds to move at a snail’s pace with
Elektra moping around a cottage. This gives Garner a chance to pout,
just in case you don’t see enough of that each week on Alias. (We do
get some nice shots of Garner in a binki or Garner in hip hugger jeans
during these scenes) Eventually she meets her next door neighbors, a
brooding single dad and his spunky daughter, Abby (Kirsten Prout).
The brooding dad is Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic), his name is a nod to
the writer/ artist who invented the character of Elektra, Frank
Miller. (Don’t know how happy Frank is about that, considering how the
movie turned out) Since Mark is a guy and Elektra’s a girl, they
inevitably share a completely out-out-place and pointless romance
subplot. This is valuable screen time that could have been used for
more close-ups of Jennifer Garner’s tight jeans, dangnabit.
The character of Elektra is all over the place. There is a mention
that she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and it simply goes nowhere,
unless having her counting steps makes her OCD. Her “superpowers”, or
whatever, are ill defined and murky. Is she actually seeing into the
future or is she just watching while the editor fast forwards the
movie? At one point she can apparently communicate telepathically
with the bad guys (something she showed no indication for previously)
for no other reason than to get another fight going.
Elektra also has the superpower of super-speed; this is shown by
cutting away to a different angle and she’s instantly standing there.
The 2002 Mr. Deeds remake with John Tuttoro as the sneaky butler used
the same trick. The cutaways were intended to be funny in Mr. Deeds,
but in Elektra it comes off as really stupid.
Garner doesn’t elevate this schizophrenically written part in any way,
she alternates between sad or blank faced. For a cold-blooded killer,
she’s actually just a big softie underneath it all with gooey motherly
instincts for the 13 year old girl she swears to protect. Usually,
I’m a sucker for deadly assassin/ cute kid combos. Leon: The
Professional and Terminator 2: Judgment Day are two of my personal
favourites. But those films had interesting protagonist leads;
Elektra herself is just dull and Garner’s boring performance doesn’t
help.
The bad guys who hunt Elektra down look nifty but this is entirely
because of the FX work. One particularly imaginative baddie is able
to make the tattoos on his body grow outward to stalk his victims.
There’s also Typhoid Mary, a woman with a literal kiss of death who
can wilt flowers by just walking by them, and it creates a real
crackerjack visual image.
However, these bad guys don’t have any characterization, or even much
dialogue. They look menacing but take away the CGI trickery and
they’re pretty lame. Even weaker is how they’re established as being
so badass and then disposed of in cheap and quick ways. One bad guy
has an introductory scene that establishes him as impervious to a
shotgun at point blank range and then he’s easily dispensed of two
minutes later. I call shenanigans on that.
Rob Bowman, who helmed some of the moodier X-Files episodes, directs
Elektra. He seems unable to shake the X-Files style, because in almost
every scene in Elektra is encased in shadow, and not in a good way.
You can barely see what’s happening on screen because it’s so
dangblasted dark all the time. There’s using light and shadow to
establish mood, and then there’s just bad lighting. Elektra falls
into the later category.
In this humble critic’s opinion, if you want to see good killer and
kid movies, go look for the extended cuts of The Professional or
Terminator 2. If you want to experience classic Frank Miller stories,
grab a copy of Dark Knight Returns from your local comic book store or
wait for the Sin City adaptation later this year. If you want to see
some nifty FX work, watch Elektra. Only the last 30 minutes. On TV.
For free.
Anyway, they should be able to synthesize H2O from the hydrogen and oxygen, being as they have faster than light travel and all…then again, I would have thought they’d have evolved beyond suit and ties so what do I know?
You know, something just dawned on me and I don’t know why I’ve never considered it before. Considering the tremendous distances that any space travel will entail, it seems much more likely that our first contact with intelligent life will actually be artifical in nature. so we’re more likely to see a Cylon than a human. I mean, think about what NASA just did this past week and landed a space craft on a moon of Saturn, and the Rover on Mars. So those UFOs we’re always spotting may actually be unmanned.
A Sandman movie… only if David Bowie plays Morpheus.
Holy crap Ed, I had the EXACT SAME THOUGHT this weekend, brought on by an article I can’t find now where some legit scientists said that we should take UFO reports a bit more seriously since, given the age of the universe, there is no logical reason that alins don’t exist and we haven’t seen them yet.
Now if the speed of light does turn out to be an unbeatable limitation that would explain their lack of physical presence but give a few thousand years of technological advancement it should be child’s play to come up with a design for unmanned ships that both explore the universe and make duplicates of themselves. The universe should be swarming with the dámņ things (Not a bad premise for a movie–a horde of automated UFOs, having chewed up every available molecule in their own galaxy, are heading for ours. A great opportunity for large scale guilt free destruction–our only hope would be to design remote controlled UFO blasters and have them hooked up to gameboy controllers, allowing the Youth of Today to mindlessly blast the alien menace to oblivian during their ample leisure time).
Worst Movie ….
Mixed Nuts with Steve Martin, Robot Jox maybe a close second.
Worst superhero movie, I think the 4th superhero movie in a series is the worst ie Superman IV, good thing Batman never made it to a 4th movie 🙂
Catwoman was rumored to be bad, and how can you make Halle Berry unatractive to look at?
I like Afflek playing Affleck … DD the movie was bad cause the movie was bad, not Mr Ben.
And Bill, your DVD viewing habits made me laugh really hard.
The universe should be swarming with the dámņ things (Not a bad premise for a movie–a horde of automated UFOs, having chewed up every available molecule in their own galaxy, are heading for ours. A great opportunity for large scale guilt free destruction–
Actually now that I think about it, Justice League Unlimited dealt with just such a story two weeks ago.
As far as “Worst Movie Ever!”s go, try to find a copy of a 1974 movie called “They”, aka “Invasion from Inner Earth.”
A friend and I rented it with the sole intention of doing an MST3K job on it… it was untouchable. It was so thoroughly bad, we couldn’t even make fun of it. We could only watch in horror, praying it would end soon. I’m a big fan of schlock cinema (to the point where I actually enjoyed both “Battle Beyond The Stars” AND “The Green Slime”), but “They” takes the cake. Hëll, it takes the whole kitchen.
Not a bad premise for a movie–a horde of automated UFOs, having chewed up every available molecule in their own galaxy, are heading for ours. A great opportunity for large scale guilt free destruction–our only hope would be to design remote controlled UFO blasters and have them hooked up to gameboy controllers, allowing the Youth of Today to mindlessly blast the alien menace to oblivian during their ample leisure time).
What, you didn’t see Independence Day or Mars Attacks!? 🙂
BrakYeller says:
“As far as “Worst Movie Ever!”s go, try to find a copy of a 1974 movie called “They”, aka “Invasion from Inner Earth.”
Wow, thanks for the tip. I had to look this one up and discovered that it is just one of the films from a guy named Bill Rebane, whose oeuvre includes Blood Harvest, Twister’s Revenge, The Demons of Ludlow, The Capture of Bigfoot, The Alpha Incident, Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake, The Giant Spider Invasion, and (omigod!) Monster a-Go Go! Holy crap!
Bill-
Just when I think you couldn’t get any cooler, you go and bring up Bill Rebane. We’re going to have to trade schlock horror stories some time, because anyone familiar with Rebane’s work has GOT to have some good ones.
-tOjb
Anytime, my friend. My wife would probably appreciate it if I had someone else to bounce things off of instead of just her (although I think she secretly enjoys it when, 10 minutes into Shriek of the Mutilated or The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra she can turn to me and say “weel, you’ve done it again.”)
I can’t believe you’ve done a ‘worst movie’ list and nobody mentioned ‘Wild wild West’ with Will Smith and Kevin Kline.
Makes Batman and Robin look like Shakespear. Lord, that’s a painful movie!
And comic movies: how about that wretched Captain America movie?
I’ll probably see Elektra on video, but want to see FF in the theatre.
I can’t believe you’ve done a ‘worst movie’ list and nobody mentioned ‘Wild wild West’ with Will Smith and Kevin Kline.
Makes Batman and Robin look like Shakespear. Lord, that’s a painful movie!
And comic movies: how about that wretched Captain America movie?
I’ll probably see Elektra on video, but want to see FF in the theatre.
(Delayed response, because the film has only just started showing in the UK.)
I went to see this film a few days ago, and I liked it. In fact, I’ve found that there are a few things which make more sense now that I’ve had a chance to think about them, which suggests that it’s not just superficial. Well, either that, or that I’m just slow on the uptake.
For instance, TallestFanEver said: “There is a mention that she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and it simply goes nowhere”. Although it wasn’t followed up on, it does actually explain some scenes from earlier in the film, or rather it shows them in a different light. Specifically, we saw her doing obsessive cleaning (scrubbing the floor), as well as moving her toothpaste etc. around until they were exactly lined up. This also shows why she’s bad at waiting around, which in turn probably made her more likely to accept the dinner invitation.
On a similar note, there’s a scene where Elektra is standing outside, and then realises that the daughter is standing nearby. When I heard the “How long have you been standing there?” “About a minute” exchange, I figured that the point was for Elektra to think “Wow, I’m slipping, I should have noticed her before that”. But in fact that was foreshadowing, which makes more sense in hindsight when you know that the daughter also has martial arts training.
My main reservation about “Daredevil” was that they’d gone overboard on the superpowers, but the mystic aspects in this film didn’t bother me – less detached than “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, but more grounded than “Bulletproof Monk” (which was a fun film). Probably the best compliment I can give is that I hadn’t finished my drink by the end of the film, because there were hardly any points when I’d feel comfortable making a noise. I really should get round to watching “Alias” sometime, to see more of Jennifer Garner’s work…
As far as guys liking lesbian scenes one explaination I’ve heard for it is that with a lesbian scene you get to look at two hot women, and you don’t have to look at another guy.
I saw Elektra Thursday and it wasn’t the disaster some of the talk made it out to be, but it was pretty lifeless.
If you need a bad film fix try and find a copy of Starship Invasions. This was one of those films from the era when the Canadian government would give you money to make a film as long it was made in Canada, no matter how bad it was. The final space battle in it looks like a bunch of bouncing pingpong balls covered with aluminum foil. And there’s the added bonus of both Robert Vaughn and Christopher Lee being the stars.