How difficult is it to make a superhero movie with a female superhero as the lead. Based on the results of such epic failures as Catwoman, Aeon Flux and now Elektra, I would have to infer that it’s more complicated than it seems.

You have all the elements for a great film. Simple plot, check, hot female lead, check, excuse to make hot female lead parade around in revealing skintight outfits, check (you really have to give it to the comic book writers, they knew their target audience), hot female lead in kickass fight scenes and winning, check, character development, check. Oops, hang on a second, that seems to be the common problem. Character development has no place in a superhero film. If we wanted character development we’d watch Definitely, Maybe or Meet Joe Black or some other equally disastrous excuse for a film.

I think I may have figured it out. The movie executives take the original script home to peruse, and it’s awesome, fight scenes, explosions, skin tight leather. Then their wives get hold of it and start going on about how it’s exploitation and sexist and the only way for the executives to hit the nag-mute button is to agree to put in character development, instead of saying “We’ll make this script and I can use all the money we get from it to pay for your next round of cosmetic surgery and buy that house on the ski slopes!”

What little I remember of this film does not bear examining in great detail, mainly because it sucked so much. I feel it would be an insult to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to actually rate Elektra, so it gets the AntiNike. As far as the dodgiest moment in the film, it would have to be the promise of the opening sequence. This scene showed Elektra in the skintight outfit killing people for money. This got us all excited. From there we got into plot and character development which can be summarised as follows. Character development = Jennifer Garner crying. Plot = Reasons for Jennifer Garner to start crying.

Instead of a comment on the rewatchability, I thought I’d include a visual warning.

The only memorable thing about Elektra is Jennifer Garner crying.   Maybe the reason for this is that the brain is forced to shut down out of self defence and forget everything about the movie, except for Jennifer Garner crying, which you remember only because you get exposed to it so often. Hopefully you remember that so that you can avoid films with her in them because you know they’ll only end in tears, generally hers, but occasionally yours.

One of these days, I’ll learn that it is not possible to make a good superhero film with a female lead. Until then, however, I will maintain an air of optimism and watch more in the hope that someday someone realises just how to do it. And when that day comes, I’ll be ready, and you’ll all find out about it quickly enough.