Power shortage

REVIEWED - ELEKTRA: An adaptation of Sophocles's great tragedy directed by the man behind Reign of Fire and starring that woman out of Alias? Not quite. When Ben Affleck's Daredevil pushed his arch-enemy and sometime squeeze Elektra off a high building (or cut her head off or whatever it was he did) in a 2003 superhero flick you've already forgotten, what little life the picture possessed followed the scarlet assassin over the ledge.

Constructed by the same firm that makes tornadoes, the grim-faced Ms Garner gave Elektra, one of comic artist Frank Miller's campest creations, a ferocious, irresistible energy. It was therefore little surprise that 20th Century Fox left Affleck out with the garbage and set about commissioning Elektra her own franchise.

Sadly, the cracking central performance aside, Rob Bowman's film is pretty feeble stuff. This Elektra is a more practically minded, less frivolous character than the heroine of Miller's comics. Such a modern woman would surely be in possession of an inner voice, which, whenever she donned that red basque, would say, "You are not going out dressed like that!" Sure enough, Garner only pulls on the full gear at the beginning and end of the film, but who wants to watch Superman without the cape?

The writers have, perhaps wisely, chosen to represent Elektra's origins through a few economic flash-backs - Mum gets bumped off by strange beasts; a cruel father pushes her too hard; blind martial arts master Terence Stamp teaches fortune-cookie wisdom - but haven't devised much of interest to furnish the space thus cleared.

The protagonist, initially a callous hitwoman, discovers that her latest targets are the handsome father (Goran Visnjic from ER) and cheeky teen (Kirsten Prout) who she has spotted hanging out in the lakeside cabin near her own. Inevitably, she turns into a kinder, gentler assassin and the three heroes, all friends now, attempt to elude the cabal of evil shape-shifters on their tail. At some random point a showdown occurs and, several bloodless 12A minutes later, the film ends (or rather stops).