I can't believe Jennifer Garner Elektra got to be in a billion dollar superhero movie. Ben Affleck never even got that, lol.
You ever do any sparring of any kind, Khev? There's an old saying, in a fight, you can surrender one of timing or speed and still defend yourself. But you can't surrender both.
Garner has the physical build, aesthetic and even jawline to have been the next great female action star. And lots of people previously bet big money on her in the hopes that she could do it. But she's a marginal actress and she lacks, surprisingly enough, a lot of the required physicality, instincts and charisma to cover for any of that. It's a good base explanation why former wrestlers like John Cena and Dave Bautista were able to break through as actors, and both have gotten quite a bit better at it over a short period of time. What pro wrestlers have to do is insanely hard. You have to understand how to use the space around you, have incredible timing at high speed even and be able to create synergy with someone else in close quarters, while you have a huge audience watching you live. Then you need to be able to constantly upsell a persona 24/7/365. Keanu Reeves is pretty marginal as an actor when he has to cover the basics. Even simple dialogue is tough for him. But he has a nice baseline charisma and is an incredible physical actor. He also has the requisite athleticism to support that. He doesn't have the speed, but he has the timing.
Garner is the Ryan Leaf of former hopeful heirs to the Sigourney Weaver kingdom. She looks great in a costume. But then she furrows her eyes and gives you that exact same expression every single time. It's a cross between angry and constipated. That's it, that's all she has. At least in Peppermint, someone figured out the best way to help her is to give her a crap load of guns instead. But all the spin kicks, shaky cam and Bourne Legacy type 3000 cuts a minute fight vision crap is all trying to hide Garner's flaws as a physical actress. To be fair, it's incredibly hard for anyone to do.
Sometimes when you have nothing else, at least you have friends out there who can help make up the shortfall. How many people here have worked at a job and someone's son or daughter or best friend or cousin showed up and couldn't cut it and everyone just had to eat it? That there is this here.