Elektra

Let's cut straight to the chase. I have a great many issues with 'Elektra', but the single biggest, is the overwhelming sense of padding that permeates every scene in the first 60% of the movie. Once you've removed the sweeping panoramas while Jennifer Garner looks meditatively into the middle distance, or the cheesy Rocky-esque training montage which does about as much to move the story along as watching her clean the floor for five minutes - another stimulating treat - there's not a whole lot left to actually entertain. It's almost as if the writers came up with a brilliant idea for a climactic final battle between slightly supernatural warriors of good and evil, but forgot to think of a story to get us there.

Sadly the porous nature of the storyline doesn't really end there. 'Elektra' is the only film I've ever seen which professes that once you've killed one single member of a dark-magic worshipping, martial arts practicing Japanese crime syndicate, you're free of their pursual forever. I was always led to believe that an alliance of ninja gangsters were slightly more resolute in their assassination ambitions, but it seems I'm just out of touch with reality.

I don't know what's more concerning - his Johnny Bravo haircut, or where she's intent on sticking that sai...

Although technically a Marvel film, the martial arts inclusion demands a comparison with a very different genre, and one with which it falls a long way short. Even against some of it's superhero peers, the storyline seems a little vapid and particularly lacking in anything approaching genuine substance. Don't get me wrong, it's a vast improvement on the film that prompted the spin-off ('Daredevil'), which I'm sure I will come to review properly one day, but that goes more to show the alarming inadequacy of it's comic-book predecessor than the comparative success of 'Elektra'.