Fiddling with my silly DVR tonight I accidentally stumbled upon this Marvel Comic-inspired film on HBO-HD. The visuals are beautiful, the cinematography captivating, and the main character, played by Jennifer Garner, is deep and interesting. And that’s about it. I can’t summarize the plot because, having seen the movie, I don’t understand it. The bad guys have annoying superpowers, everybody is a ninja, and standard action film cliches apply. Elektra’s childhood backstory, wonderfully flashbacked, never leads anywhere interesting.

In general the plot is straight-forward and easy to follow — girl with strange gifts (she can see glimpses of the immediate future), mother killed when she was young, young woman full of anger, finds work as a hired assassin, caring teacher and mentor, woman ends up on a path to redemption — except that there is cleary so much more (probably explained in the comics) that is only barely hinted at and then tossed aside, haphazardly, leaving the viewer with a sense that there is probably a lot of meat here, if only someone wanted to take the time to clue us in. Then Elektra decides to save her latest assasination targets (a father and young daughter) rather than killing them, and all kinds of weird superpowered villains appear, from nowhere in particular, to finish the job. Elektra fights, as you might expect. We never quite understand why.

Clearly this is no a movie I can recommend if one is looking for any depth. As a standard action film it is so-so. Which is sad, because the locations they filmed in were marvelously deep and interesting and beautiful and infused with personality, the visuals were captivating, some of the fight scenes were delightful (if one can ignore Elektra’s hideous red costume), Jennifer Garner’s portrayal of the main character was so full of promise, and even the score (by _Buffy_ composer Christophe Beck) was pleasant. Sadly, all of that counts for little when there isn’t a plot.

If you’re looking for something with which to enjoy your new HD setup, though, this fits the bill quite well.