Collateral (2004)

Believe it or not, there was a time when Tom Cruise wasn't absolutely insane. Before he proclaimed his undying affection for Katie Holmes by beating up Oprah Winfrey's couch while shoving Scientology down everyone's throats and declaring jihad on psychotherapy, Cruise was a respected member of the Hollywood community.

He's amassed a large string of blockbusters in his twenty-year career, and ninety-nine percent of the time, he plays a character with the same traits. He begins the movie as a good-looking, stuck-up egotist that, by the film's finale, learns the error of his ways and becomes a better person for it. Cruise isn't a bad actor, he just got stuck playing the same roles over and over.

The same could possibly be said for Jamie Foxx. Sure, he's appeared in serious films like Ali and Ray, but his roots are in comedy. The guy has In Living Color and Booty Call on his résumé, for crying out loud. Sometimes, casting against an actor's usual roles works out in a movie's favor. Such was the case with Michael Mann's crime drama Collateral. With Cruise and Foxx as his stars, Mann brings us a stunning film that proves that there's more to its lead actors than previously thought.

Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) is a Los Angeles taxi driver, striving to be the best at what he does. Dreams of starting his own limousine company dance around in his head, but after being stuck in his dead-end cabbie job for twelve years, Max is beginning to believe his dreams will never be realized. He picks up prosecuting attorney Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith) one evening, and they strike up a friendly conversation. So friendly, in fact, that she gives Max her card (and phone number) upon reaching her destination.

As Max stares at the card in amazement, another man gets in. Introducing himself as Vincent (Tom Cruise), the man asks Max to drive him to five separate places before dropping him off at LAX. Max balks at the idea at first because it's against regulations, but when Vincent produces six $100 bills as payment, he quickly changes his mind. Vincent's first stop takes him to an alley behind an apartment building, where Max waits in the cab as Vincent enters the building.

A few moments pass, and something crashes onto the roof of the car. The stunned Max gets out and is horrified to discover that the thing that landed on the roof was a dead body. When Vincent returns to the car, Max asks if he killed him. Vincent's reply: "No, I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him."

Max offers Vincent the cab, but Vincent takes him hostage, forcing him to drive around Los Angeles and make his other stops. As the movie progresses, we discover that Vincent is a contract killer, hired by mobster Felix Reyes-Torrena (Javier Bardem) to kill certain key witnesses in a federal trial against him. With the FBI and LAPD detective Ray Fanning (Mark Ruffalo) hot on their trails, Max must find a way to stop the nihilistic sociopath he's chauffeuring around the city before he can claim his final victim: Annie.

Fans of film noir will enjoy Collateral, a gritty tale of two men testing each other's limits. No stranger to this kind of film (having directed movies like Manhunter and Heat), Michael Mann has crafted a fantastically gripping story, inviting the audience into his film as part of the ride. The film is the first to utilize a new type of high-definition digital camera, and Mann and cinematographers Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron put it to good use, as Collateral boasts some of the most beautiful camerawork I've ever seen in a movie. The movie smooths the rough edges of Los Angeles with gorgeous nighttime hues, and Collateral's claustrophobia pushes tighter, even though the film is spread over a sprawling urban landscape.

Though the movie has some wonderful camerawork, Mann spends more time developing a taut, tense atmosphere. The movie also benefits from a fantastic use of music and a great ambient score by James Newton Howard. With bits of jazz, Latin music, techno, and rock, the music aids the atmosphere's build, making for a fine soundtrack to accompany the movie.

Stuart Beattie's script is also great, pitting its two leads against one another in entertaining fashion. Though other characters cross their paths, the movie is all about the interaction between Max and Vincent, and the drastic clash of ideals and lifestyles. Vincent is obsessed with improvisation, as evidenced by his captivation with an improvisational jazz solo while he and Max visit a blues club. He often refers back to the idea of constant change, citing that in his line of work, he has to be quick on his feet and be able to make things up as he goes along. Vincent seemingly reveres it, treasuring it as an art form.

On the other hand, Vincent's love of improvisation is contrasted by Max's "by the book" outlook. He's been a cab driver for over a decade, due to his belief that everything must be painstakingly outlined, especially his plans for his limousine service. As the film progresses, we begin to see how one character affects the other as the night wears on. Extraordinary circumstances change Max from a dreamer into a man of action, with Vincent as a catalyst. For Vincent, there is no development. He's the same at the end that he was at the beginning, which is not a problem. We don't need him to develop, we just need him to be him.

But perhaps the best thing about the movie is the cast. Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are both brilliant, and as I said above, the movie is all about them. Sure, we have other actors in the cast, but none are as important to the narrative as Cruise and Foxx. Cruise is incredibly effective as the cold-blooded Vincent, a hitman that is cool, calculating, and manipulative, yet oddly charismatic. Cruise is a fine actor in spite of his crazy antics, and he's definitely on his A-game with his performance here.

But Foxx is no slouch here, either. Max starts the movie as the mouse in Vincent's cat-and-mouse game, but Foxx is up to the task as he slowly becomes the cat while the movie progresses. While his performance here may have been overshadowed by his starring role in Ray (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar), Foxx is no less wonderful in Collateral. While I don't know if I would have given him the Best Supporting Actor nomination that he received, he's still fantastic. And despite being an extremely minor role, Jada Pinkett Smith puts in a good performance as well. I don't know why someone of her caliber would take a role with such low recognition, but she's not unwelcome.

Collateral is one of those movies that should be seen in order to truly grasp how good it is. When I first saw it, I listed it among the best movies I'd seen in 2004. That hasn't changed. Michael Mann has crafted a stellar movie worth all the praise it gets, and I applaud him, his crew, and his cast for their efforts. Collateral is nothing short of excellent, and it's high on my list of recommended movies. If you have two hours to kill and want to see a film noir that's well-made and well-acted, then Collateral is for you. I enjoyed it, and that's why I'm giving it four and a half stars.

Final Rating: ****½

Sin City (2005)

From Johnny Dynamite in the '50s to Ms. Tree in the '80s, hardboiled crime stories have been a part of the comic book world for quite some time. The style has even found its way into horror comics, as seen in DC's Hellblazer. However, that hardboiled noir style is most prevalent in Sin City, a series of stories created, written, and illustrated by comic book legend Frank Miller. First published by Dark Horse Comics in 1991, Sin City can be seen as a continuance of the dark, moody style that Miller used to save Daredevil from cancellation and cast Batman as a truly dark knight.

As one of the most influential writers and artists in the industry, one would figure that his work would have an effect on the cinematic adaptations of comic books. And in a way, he has. His depiction of Daredevil was carried over into that adaptation, and his influence can be seen in Tim Burton's two Batman movies. However, Miller withdrew from Hollywood, vowing to never let his own comics be adapted into a movie thanks to constant unwanted studio interference while he wrote the RoboCop sequels.

Enter Robert Rodriguez. A longtime fan of Miller's work, Rodriguez wanted to make a Sin City movie, but Miller refused to relinquish the movie rights. Rodriguez drafted Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton to appear in a short "proof of concept" film based on the Sin City short story "The Customer Is Always Right," and Miller enjoyed it enough to allow production to get underway. With both Rodriguez and Miller as directors (along with Quentin Tarantino at the helm for one scene as a "special guest director"), the cinematic adaptation of Sin City was met with much fanfare when it hit theaters this past April. But is Sin City worth the hype, or is it just another case of a great comic getting adapted into a mediocre movie?

Our film is set in a fictional locale named Basin City, though its residents rarely refer to it by its given name, instead preferring its shortened form because it characterizes the city perfectly. Nearly everyone in power, from the politicians to the police to the city's religious hierarchy, are corrupt, and Sin City's citizens have become a jaded lot as a result. And in Sin City, hardly any crime is outrageous enough to shock or surprise anyone. As comic writer Mark Evanier once so eloquently put it, "When you live in Sin City, you can get shot fifty times, stabbed in the thorax, and have a few body parts chopped off. And then, if you're not careful, someone might try to kill you."

This wonderful little town is the setting for three interweaving episodes, each anchored around a particular male lead. The movie opens with the first half of the story titled "That Yellow Bastard," where we are introduced to John Hartigan (Bruce Willis). A detective pushing sixty and suffering from angina, Hartigan is an honest cop in a city where guys like him are few and far between. Before he settles into retirement, Hartigan wants to solve one last case and capture a serial-killing pedophile rapist named Junior Roark (Nick Stahl).

However, Hartigan's pursuit of Junior is complicated by Junior's family tree. The Roarks practically own Sin City, and his father (Powers Boothe) is a very powerful senator to boot. Junior has chosen eleven-year-old Nancy Callahan (Makenzie Vega) to be his latest victim, and despite the strength of the Roark family and the protests of his partner Bob (Michael Madsen), Hartigan has taken it upon himself to stop him before he can kill Nancy.

The next story is an adaptation of "The Hard Goodbye," in which we follow a hulking brute named Marv (Mickey Rourke). He's a wee bit lacking in the looks department, so when we first meet him, he's on Cloud Nine because a gorgeous woman named Goldie (Jaime King) has offered herself to him. They spend the night together, getting ripped to the gills and having sex. Unfortunately, Marv's happiness doesn't last too long. He and Goldie fall asleep, and Marv awakens three hours later to discover his companion dead, murdered.

It isn't very long until he hears police sirens, at which point he realizes that he's been set up, because not enough time has passed for anyone but Marv and her killer to know Goldie is dead. Marv flees, swearing revenge as a way to repay Goldie for the kindness she showed him. His search for Goldie's murderer leads him down a crooked path, passing his perpetually topless parole officer Lucille (Carla Gugino) on a collision course with Goldie's twin sister Wendy (King, in a dual role), the mute karate-trained cannibal Kevin (Elijah Wood), and a corrupt priest (Rutger Hauer) that is also part of the Roark family.

Our third tale, entitled "The Big Fat Kill," begins in the apartment of a frightened barmaid named Shellie (Brittany Murphy), where a drunken former fling is pounding at her door. Shellie is comforted by her on-again/off-again boyfriend Dwight McCarthy (Clive Owen), who tells her to let the man and his entourage in while he hides in the bathroom. She opens the door for the drunk man, Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro), who proceeds to smack Shellie upside the head before heading to the bathroom.

As Jackie Boy relieves himself, Dwight steps out from behind the shower curtain and puts a straight razor to his face, telling him that if he ever so much as thinks Shellie's name again, Dwight will make sure he regrets it. Jackie Boy and his crew take the hint leave, with Dwight following them to make sure they don't hurt anybody.

Dwight tails them to Old Town, Sin City's red light district. Police are only allowed in Old Town if they're off duty and looking for a good time, and the prostitutes that are in charge of the neighborhood are just as armed and dangerous as any army. While Dwight meets up with Gail (Rosario Dawson), one of Old Town's toughest residents, Jackie Boy begins accosting a young girl named Becky (Alexis Bledel). He repeatedly asks for her services and she repeatedly turns him down, telling him that she works the day shift and he should come back in the morning. Jackie Boy doesn't take no for an answer, threatening to shoot Becky if she doesn't get in his car.

And believe me, pulling a gun on a lady in Old Town just isn't kosher. Another hooker named Miho (Devon Aoki) leaps down from a rooftop above them, introducing Jackie Boy and his crew to the business ends of her swords and throwing stars. Dwight and the girls raid their pockets, and that's when Dwight makes a rather chilling discovery: a police badge in Jackie Boy's coat. He wasn't just some goon, he was a cop. Jackie Boy's death means the end of an uneasy truce between the mob, the police, and the hookers of Old Town, so Dwight agrees to dispose of the bodies before the cops discover what happened. A group of mobsters led by the one-eyed Manute (Michael Clark Duncan) has other ideas, kidnapping Gail while sending a team of Irish terrorists after Dwight.

The second half of "That Yellow Bastard" concludes the film, resuming some eight years after the events of the first half. Hartigan was framed for raping Nancy and left to rot in a jail cell for that whole time, only finding relief in the carefully disguised letters he receives from Nancy every week of his incarceration. Once the letters stop, Hartigan begins to fear for the worst, especially when a deformed man with yellow skin and disgusting body odor delivers an envelope containing a severed finger. Hartigan falsely confesses to raping Nancy so that he may be granted parole, and after a little investigative work, tracks her to a ragged saloon where the 19-year-old Nancy (Jessica Alba) is a rather popular dancer. But by the looks of it, I think Nancy went to one of those dance schools where they teach the strippers to leave their clothes on.

Regardless, Hartigan notices the yellow freak at a corner booth and realizes the finger was just a bluff so he'd lead him right to Nancy. Hartigan and Nancy hit the road, with their yellow pursuer hot on their trail. He confronts Hartigan after tracking the pair to their safe house, revealing himself to be none other than a grossly disfigured Junior Roark. He explains that his father went far outside the boundaries of conventional science to heal the injuries his son suffered during his last encounter with Hartigan, but his work resulted in some rather unsavory side effects. Junior hangs Hartigan and leaves with Nancy to finish the job he started eight years prior, but Hartigan survives and heads straight to the Roark farm to save the closest thing to a daughter he's ever had.

I have nothing bad to say about Sin City. Any complaints I have are simply minor at best. The visual effects are absolutely brilliant, and the movie looks so much like the comic, it's frightening. With the original comics as their storyboards, directors Rodriguez and Miller use a chiaroscuro style to resemble the source material, interchanging starkly contrasting lights and shadows to make it look similar to Miller's artwork, and everything about it looks outstanding.

With reenactments of frames from the comics to how the characters look and talk, everything is right out of the comics and I couldn't be happier. Even the movie's harshest critics have to agree that Sin City is one of the most faithful and literal comic book adaptations ever made. Style frequently outweighs substance in movies like Sin City, but Rodriguez and Miller give us a menagerie of heroes, villains, and antiheroes, with the stories being engaging and never growing boring.

The audience becomes immersed in the urban inequity that is Sin City, hearkening back to the old detective movies of the '40s and '50s, but with more bells and whistles. Filtered in with the black-and-white are flashes of color. We see the red of a dress or a woman's lipstick, the blonde of Goldie's hair, the blue or green of someone's eyes, the yellow of Junior's skin. And then there's blood. Buckets and buckets of blood. We see blood either as a translucent white, mustard yellow (in the case of "That Yellow Bastard"), or more frequently, its natural red. To borrow from another reviewer, one could use the old line "black and white and red all over" to describe Sin City, which I find to be a rather astute observation. One may be thrown off by all the stylized violence, but it can get so over-the-top that it actually becomes fun.

I'm also a believer in the idea that a good movie needs a good score. While the song "Cells" by British band The Servant may be most connected with Sin City thanks to its use in the movie's promotional campaign (and despite it sadly does not appearing in the movie), the movie possesses an excellent musical score composed by Rodriguez, with a little help from John Debney and Graeme Revell. The electro-infused blues score casts a brooding shadow over the film, with its use of saxophones and occasional dash of bongo drums evoking the genre's roots.

While I thought the dialogue was silly and borderline pretentious at times, it can be forgiven because it still manages to be entertaining. Besides, there are movies out there with worse dialogue, and this is a film noir anyway. A film noir without pretentious dialogue is like a Road Runner cartoon without Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff. The script, written by God knows who (no writers are credited, though one can assume that it was penned by Rodriguez and/or Miller), presents us with quite a few fun moments and memorable lines straight out of the comics. I'd buy a copy of the screenplay if it were published, but I can just buy the comics instead.

I'd also like to commend the cast for doing a brilliant job. Each of the three male leads are superb, as are their supporting cast. With a star-studded film like this, one would think it would lapse into moments like, "Look, Bruce Willis! Now here's Jessica Alba! And how about that Elijah Wood? Remember him from Lord of the Rings?" But the movie is so engrossing, it becomes not an exercise in watching actors, but in watching characters. I will say that I enjoyed everyone, some more than others, but perhaps the brightest star in the cast is Mickey Rourke as Marv. I ended up enjoying "The Hard Goodbye" the most out of all the stories, and it was mainly because of him. Marv is easily my favorite character in the whole movie, all because of Rourke's performance.

I'd also like to give a big thumbs up to Elijah Wood, who gets as far away from Frodo as he can in his portrayal of Kevin. I'll actually go out on a limb and call Kevin the coolest villain since the T-1000 in Terminator 2 and Agent Smith from the Matrix trilogy. Wood doesn't have any dialogue, but he still manages to be unbelievably creepy, even downright scary at times.

Though I do wonder, in regards to the cast... am I the only one who thought Bruce Willis looks nowhere near as old has he should have been, or that Jessica Alba didn't look anywhere near as young as she should have been? And am I the only one who wasn't completely buying Clive Owen's American accent?

This is very much a Robert Rodriguez movie, and while one could make the argument that Frank Miller's directorial credit is merely honorary, the film is so faithful to his work that it only makes sense to list him too. In fact, Rodriguez was so adamant about giving Miller credit as a director that he had to quit the Director's Guild in order to do it (since the DGA only allows bona fide teams like the Wachowskis to receive co-director credits). No matter who gets credit as director, everyone involved should be proud of themselves for creating a true work of art.

If you're the kind of person that refuses to watch a movie that's in black and white, no matter how good it may be, you're really cheating yourself out of seeing one of the best movies of 2005. Roger Ebert said in his review, "This isn't an adaptation of a comic book; it's like a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids." And you know what? He's correct. Sin City is a triumph of imagination and filmmaking, and is worth all the praise it gets. 

Final Rating: *****

Hulk (2003)

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Marvel Comics writer/editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby collaborated on a number of monsters with silly names. But when the success of the Fantastic Four got their attention, they dropped the monster routine and began reviving the long-dormant superhero genre in what has been dubbed "the Silver Age of Comics." The early '60s saw Lee and Kirby (or Lee and Steve Ditko) churn out dozens of superheroes that are now regarded as classics, from the Avengers to the X-Men.

But in May 1962, Lee and Kirby collaborated on one final monster that seamlessly bridged the gap from monster to superhero: the Incredible Hulk. A version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a dash of Frankenstein's Monster and a comic book spin, Hulk's sales weren't exactly huge. Marvel actually cancelled his comic after six issues in order to clear out some space on the publishing schedule, but after Lee and Kirby discovered that the Hulk had gained popularity among college students, they kept him alive via guest appearances in other comics along with making him a charter member of the Avengers.

Hulk soon found himself as a major supporting character in Marvel's long-running Tales To Astonish, during which Hulk's popularity soon grew so large that Marvel renamed Tales To Astonish to the more relevant The Incredible Hulk. The character went on to inspire the popular live action '70s television show and TV-movies starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, and can even say he had a hand in giving Hulk Hogan his stage name. After the Bixby/Ferrigno show and movies, several cartoons, a handful of video games, various toy lines, all kinds of memorabilia, and even his own roller coaster at Universal Studios Florida, the Hulk finally got his own feature-length theatrical movie in the summer of 2003. Is the movie befitting of the Hulk's status as a pop culture icon, or is it in dire need of a little "Hulk Smash"?

Our story begins at a military base in the California desert circa 1966, where we are introduced to a scientist named David Banner (Paul Kersey). Attempting to instill stronger immune systems and regenerative abilities in his test subjects, he moves from aquatic life to lizards to monkeys, finding progress but no real success. He goes to his superior, General Thaddius "Thunderbolt" Ross (Todd Tesen), and asks for permission to begin testing on human subjects. Ross denies him, and David decides to use himself as a subject instead.

Soon thereafter, his wife Edith (Cara Buono) gives birth to a son, Bruce. David wonders if his experiments have had any effect on Bruce, while his wife is blissfully unaware of what he's done. Four years pass, and General Ross finally discovers David's work on humans. He throws David off the project, prompting David to wreck his lab and trigger the self-destruct system on his equipment. Edith huddles under a table with her son, but the returning David drags her into a bedroom, slamming the door behind them. Young Bruce plays with his stuffed dinosaur, staring at the bedroom door as the voices of his parents rise. The door swings open and we cut to black.

We flash forward to the present day. A brilliant scientist working at UC-Berkeley's biotechnology center, the now-adult Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) has repressed much of his early childhood while being raised by adoptive parents. With the help of his on-again/off-again girlfriend Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) and funding from the local military-industrial complex, Bruce is working with nanobots and gamma radiation to regenerate living tissue. Unfortunately, all Bruce and Betty are able to accomplish is an expensive way to make frogs explode. They could save a lot of money and time by just wrapping the frogs in a roll of tinfoil and throwing them a microwave, but I guess spending government money to do it with far-out technology is more fun. Enter Glenn Talbot (Josh Lucas), an executive with ties to Betty's father, the aforementioned General Ross (now played by Sam Elliott).

Talbot runs a defense corporation and is quite interested in Bruce and Betty's research, making it clear that if he can't hire them away, he'll acquire their technology by some other means. Man, if I knew blowing up frogs was such big business, I'd have been doing that long ago. Anyway, Bruce and Betty's assistant Harper (Kevin Rankin) makes adjustments on a gamma radiation generator inside a sealed chamber in preparation for an experiment. Harper ends up running into some trouble, and Bruce enters the chamber to help just as Harper crosses some wires and sets the generator into motion. Bruce orders Harper to get out of the chamber, but he's too scared to move, cowering directly in the path of the generator. Bruce jumps in front of Harper as the generator fires, taking a full dose of gamma radiation.

Bruce wakes up in the hospital a few days later, amazingly in perfect health. Betty can't figure out why he's still alive, but Bruce doesn't seem too fazed. What he doesn't realize is that the radiation has awakened something deep inside of him, the existence of which he could have never foreseen. One night, Bruce wakes up to see a man with three dogs sitting in his hospital room. Bruce recognizes the man as the lab's creepy new janitor, who reveals himself to be none other than David Banner (now played by Nick Nolte). David tells Bruce who he is and reveals that he's been in military custody for the last thirty years, but Bruce refuses to believe him. Bruce believes his parents had died, so the janitor can't be his father. You know, it doesn't quite have the same effect as it did in The Empire Strikes Back, but what can you do?

Bruce soon finds himself having terrible nightmares over the next few days, flashbacks to an incident at his childhood home. He goes to the lab one night to do some work on the project, when he has another flashback. Bruce realizes that David was telling his truth, and combined with the stressful past few days, it is enough to bring out what was buried inside him. He transforms into what we know as the Incredible Hulk, a gigantic green-skinned brute that goes on an absolute rampage and tears the entire lab to shreds. He rips the gamma radiation generator in half and throws it through the side of the building, where it crushes a police car responding to the ruckus. As he starts to calm down, the Hulk turns and sees a fascinated David watching, peeking from behind a door. David cautiously touches the Hulk's face, whispering, "My Bruce." The Hulk, enraged, jumps through the roof and runs away.

Bruce wakes up the next day, and tells Betty about a very vivid dream he'd had the night before. When Betty asks if he was at the laboratory the night before, he says no, believing that his destruction of the place was a dream. Meanwhile, news of the incident has reached General Ross, who accompanies a team of soldiers to Bruce's house. He orders Betty to leave, then gruffly interrogates Bruce about what happened. Turns out they found Bruce's watch at the lab, and they think he had something to do with it. When Bruce claims innocence, Ross tells Bruce that he had his father locked away and won't hesitate to do it to Bruce if he doesn't cooperate. He asks Bruce about the incident we saw earlier, and Bruce says he doesn't remember a thing about it. General Ross is convinced that Bruce is just as messed up in the head as his father, so he puts him under house arrest, with military-type guys guarding the house from across the street. He also orders Bruce to stay away from Betsy, or else.

Bruce gets a call from his father that night, who reveals that he's performed a very interesting experiment on his three dogs, and has sent them after Betty. As Bruce begins to leave, an angry Talbot arrives and forces his way past the guards. Upset over the destruction of the laboratory, he starts throwing Bruce around. Bruce gets angry and hulks up, throwing Talbot (and his couch) through the front wall. He takes out the guards like it's no big deal, then leaps into the air on his way to Betty's cabin in the woods.

At the cabin, Betty investigates a strange noise that she discovers is the Hulk. Frightened at first, she quickly realizes who he is just as David's Hulk-ified dogs arrive. He places Betty into her car, and the trio of dogs attack. A huge brawl ensues in the forest surrounding Betty's cabin, with the Hulk eventually killing the dogs. He sees his reflection in a puddle, and realizing that he's probably scaring Betty, he calms him down long enough to turn back into Bruce Banner. Betty helps him into the cabin, where he deduces that the gamma radiation triggered something in his DNA that made him the Hulk. Betty asks if he can remember anything, and he just said it felt like a dream in which he was free.

Desperate to get Bruce some help, Betty calls her father the following morning and tells them where they are. Bruce wakes up and steps out on the cabin porch, only to get shot with a tranquilizer dart as General Ross's men move in. He's taken to a high-tech underground military facility and put under surveillance. Betty wants him released, Talbot and General Ross debate on whether he should be killed or cultivated, and David wants something more.

About that same time, David visits the laboratory that the Hulk smashed, putting what's left of the gamma radiation generator back together. He fires it on himself, after which he discovers that he can intermingle with (and assume the properties of) anything he touches. Our narrative leads us from the California desert to San Francisco to another military base, where we learn what happened on that fateful day in the film's prologue and David's true intentions: to use Bruce's power to get revenge on the military that tried to throw a wet blanket on his scientific ambitions.

Like the comic book that inspired it, the movie owes more to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein than its cinematic brethren (Spider-Man, X-Men, et al). There's even overtones of King Kong and Beauty and the Beast. The movie tries to give us a deeper tone, but packages it into a palpable summer action blockbuster. I don't know if one could classify it as a blockbuster because of its financial disappointment (experiencing a seventy percent drop in its box office numbers in its second week of release, the second largest drop ever recorded for a movie that topped the box office charts in its opening weekend), but the thought was there.

The script by John Turman, Michael France, James Schamus isn't too bad at all, though I guess they decided to save some time and combine two villains. Hulk doesn't have any archenemies that the casual fan would recognize, so they simply combined elements of the Absorbing Man and Zzzax into one brand-new villain. It makes sense to me, since I can't think of one Hulk villain at all. I actually hadn't heard of the Absorbing Man and Zzzax until I started doing research for this review.

The duality of Bruce Banner and the Hulk that Turman, France, and Schamus add to the script is intriguing. Bruce is an insignificant wimp, repressing his rage and anger under a façade of just being a simple geek. However, when you uncork that bottled-up rage, he's transformed into a big green earthquake on two legs. We the viewer are able to project a little bit of ourselves onto the Hulk; all of us have just wanted to snap at least once, but won't or can't. Whether it's because of an inferiority complex or simply not wanting to make a scene, we've all been there.

The Freudian nature of the character's dual personality is actually handled well in the movie, a handling that is enhanced by the acting of Eric Bana. An Australian standup comedian with only one earlier American movie on his résumé (Black Hawk Down, for all you trivia fans), Bana brings a certain charm to the role that makes you want to like him, yet want to avoid making him mad. I also really liked Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross. She gives off a warm, soothing vibe that the character so desperately needed for the Beauty and the Beast aspect to be believable, and Connelly is just so charismatic that you can't help but like her. I also thought Sam Elliott and Nick Nolte did commendable jobs as well, with a special thumbs-up for Nolte's performance during his anti-military rant at the end of the movie. Good stuff, the cast is.

I liked director Ang Lee's rather novel approach to framing and scene transitions, along with the occasional paneling to show the action from multiple angles. That kind of filmmaking really gave the movie a charming comic-y look, quite a stretch from his prior work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lee also makes frequent use of the color green, ranging from subtle uses (like the set design, green murky water in a mop bucket, characters with green eyes) to a simple green tint in some scenes. It starts out subtle, but as the movie progresses, it feels like they're trying to beat the viewer over the head with it. Okay, so the Hulk is green! I get it! They didn't have to put that color all over the movie. Daredevil and Elektra wear red, and you didn't see people sticking red all over their movies. But the movie has an enjoyable sci-fi B-movie energy, which I thought was helped by Danny Elfman's engaging score. His music adds to the sci-fi ambiance, while hearkening back to Bernard Hermann's work with Alfred Hitchcock at the same time.

My only real worries with the movie are with the CGI and the movie's darkness. The CGI gets a lot of crap from a lot of critics, but is it really that bad? I actually thought the CGI looked adequate, but my main complaint is that it just doesn't look like it could exist in real life. It's like the animated characters from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where it looks really good, but you just don't believe it's a real person. I'm just not convinced that the Hulk was really there. If the whole movie had been animated, I wouldn't see a problem. I think I'll be able to live with the CGI Hulk, but I'm not sure about those Hulk-Dogs. What's with those? While I understand and appreciate that they were included just to give Hulk something to fight in the second act, I didn't think they were pulled off all that well. Your mileage may vary, however.

And I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like a few of the movie's action sequences were just too dark to decipher. I had to turn the brightness on my television all the way up to make out what was going on. Why would they have big action sequences if they were going to be hidden in shadows? What were the filmmakers trying to hide? The questionable CGI? The fact that the ending was totally nonsensical, even by comic book standards? It could be either or neither, but in any event, I didn't like all that darkness. I want to see what's happening in the movie, not listen to sound effects. If I wanted to use my imagination, I'd listen to old radio dramas.

While almost everything about the movie is sound, my feelings regarding it are mixed. I enjoyed parts of it, but I felt that as a whole, the movie simply cruised along with the bare minimum of effort. It didn't leave me looking forward to a sequel, if that's what it was supposed to do.

Perhaps the best things to come out of the movie are those ultra-cool Hulk Hands toys. I dare you to find me one person who doesn't enjoy Hulk Hands even a little. They're so nice, they had to make them twice (as evidenced by the "Thing Hands" that were made after Fantastic Four came out). I wasn't exactly disappointed in the movie, but I wasn't exactly all that enthused watching it either. But I think I'll be giving Hulk two and a half stars. Perfectly acceptable chaos, Hulk is.

Final Rating: **½

Catwoman (2004)

Of all the villains in Batman's rogues gallery, one of the most famous and intriguing is Catwoman. Created in 1940 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, she was originally a catsuit-wearing jewel thief named Selina Kyle, whose sex appeal and ambiguous nature to make her a foe, ally, and and occasional romantic foil of the Dark Knight. As her character evolved, Catwoman often injected shades of gray into the black-and-white world of Batman.

Catwoman's mystique has made one of the more popular members of Batman's rogues gallery, which has also made her all the more ripe for numerous live action translations. Besides her appearances on the classic '60s Batman television show (where she was played by Julie Newmar, Lee Meriweither, and Eartha Kitt), Catwoman was also portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer in Tim Burton's Batman Returns and had a very brief cameo in the pilot episode of the WB Network's short-lived series Birds of Prey.

But perhaps the most controversial depiction of Catwoman came in 2004, when Warner Brothers released the first feature-length film dedicated solely to Batman's feline fatale. However, Batman is nowhere to be seen here. Even Selina Kyle is missing in action. While this Catwoman makes efforts to retains the sexiness of her comic book inspiration, it's an all-new character, one that we probably could have done without.

The movie begins as we are introduced not to Selina Kyle, but to Patience Phillips (Halle Berry), a meek, bashful woman completely devoid of anything resembling self-confidence. What she lacks in aplomb, she makes up for in artistic ability. She's a talented painter working in the art department of H&H, a cosmetics company operated by the dictatorial husband-and-wife team of George (Lambert Wilson) and Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone). George and Laurel obviously hate each other, which isn't helped by the fact that Laurel is being forced to relinquish her position as H&H's top model to a new, younger, more attractive model that George just so happens to be sleeping around with. Laurel doesn't even bother to mask her hatred for her husband either, going as far as to make awkward, unfunny jokes about her husband's infidelity at a press conference to announce their new facial cream "Beauline."

Meanwhile, Patience has finished up a design for the Beauline ad campaign, but George rejects it for the simple reason that he doesn't like the particular shade of red Patience used. He gives her a second crack at it, telling her to have her new ad done by midnight the next day. She timidly apologizes for her "hideous" work, agreeing to get it right the next time.

That night, a raucous party at the building across the alley keeps Patience awake. Who's still partying at 4:00 in the morning? Mötley Crüe? Kiefer Sutherland's gang of vampires from The Lost Boys? Insomniacs with nothing better to do? She sticks her head out the window and yells at them to turn their music down, but they ignore her and keep partying. Just as she pulls her head back inside, she notices a mysterious gray cat staring at her from the alley below, perched on a motorcycle.

The next morning, Patience is painting when she notices the same cat on her windowsill. She goes out to rescue him, and ends up crawling out onto a shaky air conditioning unit. A man driving by sees her and runs up to her apartment, believing she's going to jump. He arrives at her window just as the air conditioner falls out from under her, snatching her and pulling her back inside. The man introduces himself as Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt), a homicide detective with the local police department. They don't get to talk long, as Patience gets a look at the clock and realizes that she's insanely late for work. She dashes out the door, accidentally leaving her wallet on the ground for Tom to find. He shows up at H&H to return her wallet, and the two decide to go out for coffee sometime.

Patience arrives at the company factory that night to deliver her new ad idea to George. She lets herself in after being unable to find a security guard to help her out, but thanks to her unfamiliarity with the building, she ends up stumbling across a research lab. Inside, we see Laurel arguing with Dr. Slavicky (Peter Wingfield), an H&H chemist who explains to her that Beauline has some unexpected side effects. Aside from being highly addictive, its use has some nasty consequences. Stop using it, and your face melts away; keep using it, and your skin becomes as hard as a rock. Despite Slavicky's protests, Laurel intends to release it anyway and make some money.

Patience backs away and ends up knocking over some equipment, the sound of which prompts Laurel to send a pair of security guards after her. The guards chase her down into the bowels of a building, where she ends up trapped in a huge pipe in the waste treatment section of the factory. One push of a button later, and a huge wall of water flushes Patience out of the pipe, killing her in the process. Patience's lifeless body surfaces on a riverbed nearby, covered in mud and surrounded by at least a dozen cats. The one we saw sitting on the motorcycle and windowsill earlier is among them, and it climbs onto her chest. The cat opens its mouth and a white fog comes out, breathing new life into her. Her eyes snap open, alive but different.

Patience awakens in her apartment the following morning to discover that not only does she have absolutely no memory of the night before, but that cat is still following her. She checks the cat's collar, finding that it belongs to someone named Ophelia Powers (Frances Conroy). Patience arrives at Ophelia's old-style house in the middle of the city, and is invited in. She enters despite an initial hesitation, and finds that the woman already owns a whole menagerie of cats.

Ophelia sits Patience down for a cup of tea, introducing her feline stalker as "Midnight." We also learn that Midnight is a one of a rare breed of Egyptian Maus, but before Ophelia can get into how cats relate into Egyptian culture, Patience decides it's time to leave. Before she can let herself out, Ophelia tosses a ball of catnip to Patience, who catches it, sniffs it, and starts rubbing it all over her face. Very weird.

When she finally arrives at work, Patience ends up getting chewed out by George, who ends up firing her after she insults him to his face. This sparks a series of events that sees Patience hissing at some dogs, eating eight cans of raw tuna, beating Tom in a game of basketball to apologize for missing their date for coffee, and crashing another all-night party across the alley. And by "crashing," I mean kicking down the door, short-circuiting the stereo speakers with beer, and smacking the party host with the tap to the keg. I want to crash a party like that someday. Anyway, after crashing the party, Patience goes back to her apartment and opens up a box full of sexy leather clothes given to her by some coworkers. She puts on her new leather outfit, gives herself a sassy new haircut, and hops on the party host's motorcycle to enjoy a night out on the town.

She rides down to a jewelry store nearby, and notices that the place is being robbed. She sneaks inside and, in a moment that visually looks like it was taken directly from Catwoman: The Video Game, Patience beats the snot out of the jewel thieves. She packs up most of the stolen jewelry into a brown paper bag with a note simply reading "sorry," and leaves it in the lobby of the store for the police to find. A day or two later, Patience gets online and does a little searching for cats. She discovers various websites about how cats were worshipped as gods in ancient Egypt, and discovers a picture of Midnight circa 1940. Patience returns to Ophelia's house, and Ophelia merely responds that she knew Patience would return when she was ready. She explains to Patience about the role of cats in ancient Egypt, before taking her upstairs to explain that Midnight selected her to become the next in a long line of "catwomen."

Patience is naturally skeptical, but begins to realize what's going on when Ophelia pushes her off a balcony and she hits the ground on all fours like a cat. Ophelia tosses a bunch of pictures of various catwomen to her (including one of Michelle Pfeiffer circa Batman Returns), and gives her a feline-themed mask. She explains that Patience is still Patience, but is now much more... she's Catwoman. Blessed with extra-sharp reflexes, senses heightened to superhuman levels, and an unnatural knack for jumping great distances, Patience begins to recover her lost memories, determined to find her killer and stop Beauline before it can be unleashed on the general public.

While she balances the line between good and evil and is enthralled with the newfound freedom her new persona gives her, a series of murders are eventually pinned on Catwoman, bringing Patience into direct conflict with the man that's caught her fancy. Patience finds herself trying to avoid a murder rap and get revenge on those that killed her at the same time.

Catwoman has been one of the hardest reviews for me to write, simply because I had so much trouble paying attention to the movie. It wasn't for being distracted, it's because the movie is uninteresting and just plain boring. And the movie's not very good, at that. I really can't think of one good thing about the movie. Yeah, Halle Berry is usually nice to look at, but the short hair and dominatrix outfit don't flatter her at all. She's one of the most gorgeous women on the planet, so why anyone would want to put her in a costume that makes her look like that is beyond me. And while the movie's biggest selling point is its lead actress in skimpy clothing, you could just skip Catwoman and go rent Swordfish or Monster's Ball instead.

Bad outfit aside, the movie also suffers from bad direction, bad writing, and bad performances. I don't blame the cast, since they have to earn a living somehow. If I had to be in this movie, I wouldn't have bothered giving a good performance either. The script by John Brancato, Michael Ferris, and John Rogers (from a story by Brancato, Ferris, and Theresa Rebeck) features dialogue so poorly written, it makes me want to cry. "Sorry isn't good enough? Let me try the remix." "Game over? Guess what, it's overtime." What the hell is that? Anybody who talks like that in real life should be beaten into unconsciousness. You don't sound cool, you sound like a jackass.

And the character of Ophelia serves absolutely no purpose beyond providing exposition early in the movie. You'd figure that she could serve as some kind of mentor to Patience, like a cat-hoarding Yoda; or she could at least be a little more helpful than just handing Patience an ugly mask. It's such a waste of what I felt could have been a promising character. And how about Pitof's direction? He must have had both the attention span of a hummingbird and an addiction to some new hybrid of speed and cocaine when he was in the editing booth, because the cuts during the action sequences average maybe less than a second at most. It's not hip or exciting, it's migraine inducing. As it turns out, "Pitof" is a pseudonym used by French film director Jean-Christopher Comar. I don't blame him for using a assumed name, because I wouldn't want my real name attached to this hunk of crap either.

With all the disposable music throughout the movie and ugly outfits on attractive women, it feels like I'm watching a badly edited Britney Spears music video that's been stretched out to 104 minutes. And the CGI is so unrealistic and so prominent that they should have just made the movie a cartoon. Whatever happened to using trained cats or doing stunts with wirework? And is it just me, or did that whip look like it was CGI too? Come on, Halle; learn how to use a real whip! Michelle Pfeiffer did!

Not only is the CGI bad, everything else is bad too. The camerawork is too shaky during the action sequences, and combined with the light-speed editing, it just gave me a headache. And what's with all the shaky camerawork in movies nowadays? Just because they did it in The Blair Witch Project doesn't mean that every movie since then should. So here's some advice for you aspiring young directors and cinematographers: go back to film school, you jokers.

Klaus Badelt's score is acceptable, but it's largely forgettable and would be better suited for listening in The Gap or Banana Republic. And how about that acting? Every performance is hollow and uninvolved, and there is absolutely no chemistry between Berry and Benjamin Bratt at all. Berry seems to be having fun in the role, but it's so badly written that any credibility she had gained from Monster's Ball suffered a pretty nasty beating. I'd be willing to bet that she's just a bad WB sitcom away from completely flushing her career down the toilet. It's the quickest plummet of an Oscar winner since Mira Sorvino fell off the face of the earth after winning the Best Actress Oscar for Mighty Aphrodite.

Meanwhile, Bratt is just there, and Sharon Stone plays the role like she's not only unhappy to be there, but like her role as a middle-aged woman clinging to past beauty hit too close to home. She may have been an "It Girl" thanks to Basic Instinct, but thirteen years later, a world full of Halle Berrys and Jennifer Anistons and Angelina Jolies has caused her to fade into obscurity. And with flops like Catwoman, Cold Creek Manor, and Basic Instinct 2, I wouldn't be surprised if she sank back into obscurity again.

The ironic thing is that Catwoman, one of the worst comic book adaptations ever made, was released during the same summer that saw the release of Spider-Man 2, one of the best ever made. Given that the movie is lacking in thrilling stunts or memorable one-liners, I'm not exactly shocked that the movie is a total waste of time. And I'm sure that the fact that neither Selina Kyle nor Bruce Wayne appear will cause fans to draw the line right there.

Perhaps the only real connection to Catwoman as fans know her is the scene in which she snatches a few diamonds from a jewelry store. The scene contributed nothing to the movie outside of a way for Catwoman to acquire her claws, and probably wasn't needed. There's no purpose for it outside of showing her as a "bad girl," and there's more than likely a better way to show it.

If it were me, I'd have made the movie about Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman from day one, and I'd have done everything humanly possible to make sure Pfeiffer reprised the role. And I would have dropped that whole cat goddess thing too. I have nothing against those of you who worship cats, but that bit just seemed hackneyed and tacked on. I personally found Catwoman to be the "girl power" version of Batman & Robin. It actually makes Superman IV and Roger Corman's Fantastic Four look good by comparison.

I also have yet to figure out why it's so hard for Hollywood to make a woman-led comic book adaptation that's actually good. I mean, look at what's out there: Supergirl, Barb Wire, Tank Girl, Catwoman, and Elektra. Nothing really good to choose from, and none of them really rate beyond mediocre at best. I'd like to think that that a good female-driven superhero movie can be made... but only if Hollywood is willing.

Final Rating: *

Elektra (2005)

Kung fu was all the rage in the 1970s. Bruce Lee was a huge star, David Carradine's television show Kung Fu was making waves, and action figures soon became marketed with "kung fu grip" in order to capitalize on the newfound popularity of kung fu. Kung fu soon found its way into comic books, with heroes such as Iron Fist and the Master of Kung Fu debuting.

As the '70s progressed into the '80s and '90s, kung fu diminished in recognition as bad girls became more and more popular. Pulp comic sexpot Vampirella's cult following grew, and along with frequent doses of sex appeal from Batman villains Catwoman and Poison Ivy. One of the last examples of a kung fu comic star and one of the earliest members of the bad girl trend is Marvel's one and only Elektra.

Making her first appearance in 1981 in the pages of Daredevil #168, cartoonist Frank Miller created her to be a hired assassin out to kill Daredevil, but with a twist. As it turns out, Elektra was at one time the college sweetheart of Daredevil's secret identity, Matt Murdock. But a lot of emotional baggage and martial arts training later, Elektra had become one of the world's most dangerous and deadly assassins.

Since her debut, she's gone on to star in several miniseries and graphic novels, and even had her own title on two separate occasions. Elektra has become such an important part of the Daredevil mythos that when the "Man Without Fear" appeared in his first movie in 2003, the sai-wielding Greek assassin was right there by his side. Although the Daredevil movie's success was rather modest and the reactions among critics and fans were decidedly mixed, Twentieth Century Fox felt that Elektra was such an intriguing character that they decided to give her a spin-off movie of her own.

Our story begins with a brief monologue, introducing us to the universe we will become a part of during the film. Since the beginning of time, good and evil have waged a war hidden in shadow. In modern times, the force of evil has become represented by "The Hand," a criminal organization that secretly engages in the dark arts. The good follow a form of martial arts called "kimagure," the masters of which are granted a form of clairvoyance and, in some rare cases, the ability to raise the dead. Somewhere in the history of this war is something called "The Treasure," a story of a motherless daughter that is destined to become a powerful woman warrior and tip the scales between good and evil, the final weapon in an ancient war.

It is from here that we segue into our introduction to Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner), who was shown very much dead at the end of Daredevil. So if this isn't a prequel, what is she doing alive? In the time since we last saw her, blind kimagure master Stick (Terence Stamp) used his powers to resurrect Elektra for the purpose of continuing the martial arts training that was briefly alluded to in Daredevil. Emotionally scarred by watching the death of her mother and fueled by an intense inner rage, Elektra soon finds herself expelled from Stick's dojo, and she fine-tunes her abilities into a career as an accomplished hired assassin. Using her death to her advantage, she has become an urban legend in the underworld, with opinions ranging from her being a ghost to simply not existing.

And in order to maintain appearances, she's developed an obsessive compulsive disorder, incessantly cleaning her house in order to remove all DNA evidence of her existence. It's kinda like Men In Black, but with cleaning solvents instead of alien technology. Anyway, after accomplishing one job, her manager McCabe (Colin Cunningham) arrives to inform her of her next assignment, where she's to set up shop in a secluded cottage on an island off the coast of Washington and await further instructions. This doesn't sit too well with Elektra, who doesn't like playing the waiting game, but she goes anyway.

At the cottage, we learn a few things. One of them is that Elektra's obsessive compulsive disorder stretches far beyond scrubbing floors. She also counts her footsteps and has a very specific way that she organizes things. It's not as extreme as it could be, but it's still creepy. I have to agree with Roger Ebert's review; I want to see a superhero with a full-blown case of extreme OCD, to the point that they count their steps when they walk. Wouldn't that be different?

Okay, back to the story. While waiting for information on her targets, Elektra is befriended by her neighbors, Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic) and his rebellious 13-year-old daughter Abby (Kristen Prout). The cold, distant Elektra slowly begins to take a liking to her neighbors, but the new friendship takes an unexpected turn when she learns that her targets are none other than Mark and Abby. She makes an attempt, but her conscience finally gets to her and she can't bring herself to kill them.

Elektra calls McCabe and tells him she can't carry out the contract, which ends up unloading a whole heap of trouble. Y'see, it turns out that the unnamed party that hired Elektra to kill the Millers is the Hand, led by Master Roshi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). The Hand's been chasing the Millers because they've determined that Abby is the aforementioned Treasure, and after some prodding from his son Kirigi (Will Yun Lee), Roshi has decided that if Abby won't join the Hand, she won't get the opportunity to oppose them either.

Elektra wipes out an entire team of ninjas in defense of the Millers, and the trio soon find themselves on the run from the Hand and Kirigi's three goons: Stone (Bob Sapp), who is incredibly strong and has rock-hard skin; Tattoo (Chris Ackerson), whose intricate animal tattoos can peel right off his torso and attack; and Typhoid Mary (Natassia Malthe), who can cause any living thing to wither and die. Their evasion of the Hand soon leads them to Stick's dojo, where Elektra learns that if she wishes to start a new life, she must defeat the Hand and come face-to-face with the ghosts of her past.

Elektra is an oddity. Though a spinoff of Daredevil, it has only the loosest of connections to that film. Elektra is shown getting killed at the end of Daredevil (though the scene is cleverly structured to avoid having to pay royalties to Colin Farrell or Ben Affleck), and that's it. If anything can be said about the movie, it's that it definitely tries to forge its own identity. The promotional materials didn't even mention it was related to Daredevil until shortly before the movie's release, instead choosing to ride the coattails of the X-Men movies instead. Even the poster says that the movie is "from the forces that brought you X-Men." However, Daredevil ties or not, Elektra is very much an example of not much style over even less substance.

This is most evident in the lead character herself, who brings very little to the movie. Despite being one of the better parts of Daredevil, the Elektra depicted here is such a hard character to connect to, it hurts the movie. When you boil comic book heroes down to their barest of skeletons, you can find why people relate to them. Spider-Man is a nerdy little wiener with problems like everyone else. The X-Men have extraordinary gifts yet are social outcasts. The Hulk is a man whose bad temper gets him in a crapload of trouble. Batman and the Punisher are out to avenge the murders of their families by punishing the wicked.

But it's hard to connect to Elektra. It's hard to even like her. She's a cold-blooded killer that's completely devoid of a sense of humor or any other kind of emotion. The Punisher may be a killer, but at least you can understand the means to his madness. Elektra's make less sense. So she's a hitman because she saw her mother die and her father was a strict swimming coach? Color me underwhelmed. Besides, didn't she see her father get murdered too? I could have sworn it was an important plot point in Daredevil. Why isn't she all raw over that? Is it because Bullseye isn't in this movie?

The script, penned by Zak Penn, Stuart Zicherman, and Raven Metzner, leaves a lot to be desired. There is little to no character progression at all, and not only is Elektra a one-dimensional character, but that one dimension is that she's a total bitch for most of the movie. She spends a lot of time being grouchy and telling people to leave her alone, and she even makes a veiled threat to cut off Abby's hands after she steals Elektra's lucky necklace. She just has so little charisma that when she actually starts to open up, we don't care. Why would someone want to make the heroine both antisocial and emotionally detached? Combine that with her line of work, and I'm willing to bet that Elektra's a total sociopath.

Her obsessive-compulsive disorder also seems to fall into a plot hole halfway through the movie, ceasing to exist once it becomes inconvenient for the movie. If you're just gonna drop it, why put it in there to begin with? And the apparently budding romantic relationship between Elektra and Mark felt exactly like the love scene from Daredevil: tacked on because the studio wanted some romantic tension, despite a lack of chemistry between the two actors.

It also seems like Joss Whedon had a hand in writing the script, because every villain poofs into a cloud of dust immediately after being killed, akin to Whedon's "Buffyverse" vampires. Why? I don't know, and I doubt the writers know either. It probably has something to do with that "dark arts" thing, I guess. I'm not a regular comics reader, so I'm absolutely clueless regarding that. I also don't get Kirigi. He's supposed to be the movie's Big Bad, but he's not exactly intimidating until he goes all Bruce Lee near the end. Plus there's the fact that his connection to Elektra is insanely weak, and that the character is so hollow that you could cut his head off, yell down his neck, and hear an echo.

Where I will give the movie credit is in Rob Bowman's direction and Christophe Beck's score. Beck's score was quite good, holding a very Asian feel that went with the kung fu tone of the movie. And if anything, Bowman made a movie that at least looked good. The movie seems more like a tribute to Hong Kong wuxiá movies than it does American superheroes, but unfortunately, the film's look is almost as if the producers were aiming to do the American version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That scene with the sheets flapping around everywhere seems like a fight that Zhang Yimou would choreograph, only less interesting.

I also have a beef with the cast. Personally, I don't buy Jennifer Garner as a leading lady in an action movie. She was fine in the two fight scenes she had in Daredevil, but I didn't think she was all that great here. She's always seemed to me like she was better off in romantic comedies or dramas, but I've never seen Alias, so what do I know. The rest of the cast all gave rather wooden performances, though I did like Kristin Prout and Terence Stamp. I found Prout's "yeah, whatever" demeanor to be quite welcome, and I enjoyed Stamp, although Stick isn't half as cool as General Zod from Superman II. My only complaint with Stamp's performance is that Stick is supposed to be blind, and very rarely did I get the impression that he actually was. If it were me, I'd have given him some special contact lenses or glued his eyelids shut. He'd act like he was blind then.

People talk about Daredevil being bad, but I don't think Elektra does much to be any better. It's like Catwoman with better fights, acting, and special effects. The characters are flat, the acting is bleh, the action is uninspiring, and the direction is derivative. I said before that the fight scenes weren't very interesting, but the catch is that the whole movie isn't. Elektra is just so incredibly boring that even the cool fight scenes seem tedious. However, the movie can be enjoyed on some level, if you like seeing an attractive female ninja in a red corset kicking the crap out of everybody in sight. And despite being a disposable karate movie with forgettable characters and a waste of acting talent, the movie is an okay addition to the Marvel stable. It's certainly better than Catwoman. I'll give Elektra two stars and leave it at that.

Final Rating: **