Jennifer Garner’s Sexy Assassin Movie Is Trending On Netflix

Jennifer Garner's bizarre Marvel film, Elektra, is currently in the top ten of all movies on Netflix.

By Jonathan Klotz | Published

jennifer garner elektra

Netflix is home to award-winning movies, fantastic original series like Wednesday and Squid Game, insane documentaries like Tiger King, and also less famous, less prestigious options, like Elektra. According to Flixpatrol, the Jennifer Garner Marvel comic adaptation is currently in the top ten for all movies on the service. This naturally leads to the question, why?

Jennifer Garner has starred in many films, and the amazing television series Alias, most of them good, some of them bad, and one a complete abomination to the source material. Elektra is a sequel to Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, which introduced Garner as one of the most femme fatales in the Marvel Universe. In that film, Elektra is killed by Bullseye (Colin Farrell), just as she was in the famous storyline penned by Frank Miller back in the 80’s, but from there, the movie and comic versions diverged dramactically.

In Elektra, the Greek assassin is shown to have been revived by Stick (Terence Stamp), and is now engaged in a war with The Hand, a clan of evil ninjas that yes, was the inspiration for The Foot Clan from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jennifer Garner’s character decides to protect her latest targets, a father and daughter played by ER’s Goran Visnjic and Kristen Zien, prompting The Hand’s elite team of assassins to come for them. If you expected this to be a chance for the introduction of classic villains, such as Typhoid Mary, or even Taskmaster, then you would be sorely disappointed as the entirely one-note characters make John Travolta, from The Punisher, look dangerous.

jennifer garner elektra
Jennifer Garner as Elektra

During the course of a long, drawn out battle, Elektra learns that Abby, the young girl she’s protecting, is a “treasure,” a once a generation martial arts prodigy, just like Elektra. One of the assassins, Typhoid, reveals she was also a treasure, and going by the age of Elektra makes the whole “once a generation” conceit fall apart immediately. While Jennifer Garner may have been the first actress to play Elektra, she’s only the second best to pick up the sais.

During the second season of Daredevil, a more comic accurate version of Elektra was introduced, played by Elodie Yung. Jennifer Garner’s portrayal never reaches the body count of Yung’s, with the latter going to be a major part of The Defenders cross-over, uniting the street-level heroes of the Netflix shows together against The Hand. While it’s unlikely we’ll see Yung reprise her role in the MCU due to her commitments to her own drama, The Cleaning Lady, there’s always a chance that the increased use of The Defenders will lead to at least a cameo.

If the weather is bad, and there’s nothing left to stream on Netflix, then maybe, that would be a time to stream Elektra. Jennifer Garner’s more recent film, Peppermint, where she plays a vigilante is also available on Netflix. With Marvel’s latest phase going full bore into the Multiverse Saga, Garner could theoretically return in Secret Wars, but so far the star has given no indication she wants to, and given what happened last time she squeezed into the red leather, who can blame her?