Grade: B-

Verdict: Jennifer Garner kicks butt — but you already knew that.

By BOB TOWNSEND
Cox News Service

Comic book nerds who flock to "Elektra" to see how it stacks up against other recent products in the Marvel franchise, including "X-Men," "Spider-Man" and "Daredevil," may be a bit disappointed. But fans of butt-kicking beauty Jennifer Garner, who stars in the title role (reprising her appearance in "Daredevil"), will likely leave happy. True to form, Garner creates a strapping action character with as many foibles as muscles.

Garner currently stars on ABC series "Alias" as moody and acrobatic super spy Sydney Bristow. With a body that Donatella Versace has described as "to die for," she's inspired many a shape-up magazine article. And on a recent episode of "Nip/Tuck," a teenage girl asked the plastic surgeons to give her Garner's features.

Garner puts that pneumatically chiseled build and solemnly sensuous face to good use in "Elektra" -- suffering troubles and doing a job not too far removed from her CIA work in "Alias." The back story is for comics addicts only; the rest of us won't need it. But essentially, after being brought back to life (she dies in "Daredevil"), Elektra has retreated into shadowy, self-imposed exile -- emerging only to take assignments as a high-paid assassin, donning a scanty bright-red costume that could also be very useful to a high-paid call girl.

Elektra has no super powers per se. In fact she has an obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes her count her steps and arrange fruit. And a big chip on her shoulder from back when she was a wee thing and saw her mother murdered. But she possesses great physical prowess and uncanny martial arts skills wielding sharp, shiny things. She also has the ability to see into the future, using Kimagure, a mind power she learned from her blind, monk-like mentor, Stick (Terrance Stamp).

As the story unfolds, with multiple flashbacks to Elektra's tragic childhood, it diligently fulfills the graphic novel conventions of an allegorical struggle between good and evil -- both without and within. Elektra meets a father and daughter, Mark and Abbey Miller, played by "E.R" doctor Goran Visnjic and Kirsten Prout. Through her relationship with them, Elektra is transformed from cold-blooded killer to care-giver. But she's also forced to do battle with an old enemy, swordsman Kirigi (Will Yun Lee), who leads a sinister cadre of sorcerer ninjas known as the Hand.

As wicked fighting figures go, the Hand is comprised of some pretty funny and scary ones -- Tattoo, Typhoid, Stone and Kinkou -- who each conjure a different form of black magic. But, Tattoo, whose vivid animal ink comes alive to seek and destroy, and Typhoid, whose femme fatale breath is so frigid it can slay, are the best of the bunch.

Better than any of the dark action sequences, though, are the bits of satire and light director Rob Bowman brings in, recalling his work on "The X-Files." For those who could care less if they ever see another sticks-and-swords fight scene, the first part of the movie offers a refreshing narrative respite. Little Miss Miller gets in several precocious asides, including taunting her father by explaining, with an allusion to Greek myth, "Her name's Elektra, dad." And Elektra ironically describes her current profession as "layoffs and payroll reductions; that sort of thing."