DVD Review by David Blackwell

DETAILS: 99 minutes, audio commentary, trailers, featurettes, deleted scenes, extended/alternate scenes, multi-angle featurette, and galleries

STUDIO: FOX/Regency/Marvel

RELEASE DATE: 10-18-2005

ELEKTRA is a fascinating comic book character created by Frank Miller for the Daredevil comic book. Jennifer Garner brought the character to life in DAREDEVIL (the movie), but the ELEKTRA movie was a mixed bag. It works on some levels, but it misfires on other levels. It was a failure at the North American box office. Now Rob Bowman provides an unrated director's cut with more action, some cut material, and more violence. No matter the differences between the theatrical cut and the director's cut, the two versions aren't like day and night like was the difference between the two different versions of the DAREDEVIL movie. Some problems still exist within the script of ELEKTRA. No matter the acting caliber of the cast or the great action, you have to have a script that really connects with the viewer that entertains them.

More analysis on the movie (check out the Theatrical Cut DVD Review):

https://enterline2.tripod.com/elektra.html

VIDEO: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)

Colors and shadow values are great. Image detail is good. Rob Bowman re-color-timed each shot giving a different look at a few places in the movie. One early scene in chapter five has Elektra's eyes a really bright green to match a flashback scene. Little differences like that.

AUDIO: English 5.1 Dolby Digital, English 5.1 DTS

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Rob Bowman remixed the Director's Cut to take advantage of the home theater experience instead of using the same loud mix used for the theatrical cut. The new audio mix matches up to the quality of the best audio of other movies on DVD.

SPECIAL FEATURES: The first disc has a somewhat interesting audio commentary for the DC with director Rob Bowman and his editor on the film. The two theatrical trailers for ELEKTRA are also there.

The second disc does have many worthwhile extras, but the featurettes could have used some major editing to get the running times down. RELENTLESS: THE MAKING OF ELEKTRA is spilt up in two parts (Part 1- PRODUCTION and Part 2- POST PRODUCTION). The first part runs for almost 90 minutes while part 2 is about 50 minutes. Both parts are very extensive with lots of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews (with cast and crew). The best part are the dailies showing little screw-ups. However both could have been edited down to around 90 to 100 minutes. They're overlong as is. The same overlong problem occurs with ELEKTRA: INCARNATIONS that focuses on the various people who written and drawn Elektra for comics. Interviews with Frank Miller (who created Elektra for the Daredevil comic), artist Bill Sienkewicz, Brian Michael Bendis, and Greg Rucka (who had a great idea for a storyline of Elektra doing Heroin (because she couldn't get work anymore) that unfortunately got nixed by the Editor In Chief at Marvel Comics). The other featurette, ELEKTRA IN MYTHOLOGY, is only for people who like hearing about Greek mythology from an academic type (even though she is attractive).

The best extras of the second disc are the three deleted scenes (with optional commentary by director Rob Bowman for two of them) which were on the theatrical cut DVD and six alternate/extended scenes (with optional commentary by Rob) that are even better than the deleted scenes. Also on disc two is a Multi-Angle dailies for The Showdown At The Well and five galleries (Costumes, Production Design, Weapons, Unit Photography, and Storyboards). Included in the case with the DVD are an exclusive Elektra comic book and a four page booklet with a note about the Director's Cut from Rob Bowman and a page on Jennifer Garner's training.

All extras on disc two are in Anamorphic Widescreen, but I wonder whose bright idea to have the deleted and alternate/extended scenes window boxed. The extras are an improvement over the single disc Theatrical Cut DVD.

FINAL ANALYSIS: The ELEKTRA Director's Cut is a good part of the Collector's Series from FOX even though the featurettes on disc two could have used some good editing.

this DVD Review is (c)10-26-2005 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com and look for additional content (and news/updates) at http://www.livejournal.com/users/enterlinemedia