Designated Hero: Stick is supposed to be the Big Good of the story. However, his willingness to gamble other people's lives (such as calling a hit on the Millers while hoping that Elektra won't just kill them despite admitting this is out of character for her) and generally being passive in the story makes him come off as a horrible person.
Esoteric Happy Ending: The movie ends with the implication that Abby will be able to live a normal life. However, the characters just assume the Hand will stop chasing Abby because of Kirigi's promise. Yet, Kirigi wasn't the leader of the Hand, who have no reason to honor the deal.
Hilarious in Hindsight: During the lead-up to this film's release, some of the promotional materials claimed that this movie had connections with the X-Men Film Series, which was ultimately proven to be false. Fast-forward nearly 20 years later, and Jennifer Garner is set to reprise her role as Elektra in Deadpool & Wolverine, a movie that's part of both that franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Iron Woobie: Regardless of how you feel about the films she's appeared in, Elektra has not had a good life. She saw her mother murdered when she was a child, grew up with a very strict father who put her through rigorous training since childhood, sees her father murdered, mistakenly injures her boyfriend, is humiliated by her father's killer before being killed herself, resurrected by a former sensei only to be kicked out of the school because of her rage issues and became an assassin for hire while still being haunted by her past. And she is never seen reunited with Matt or getting to avenge her father.
In Daredevil (2003), Elektra was killed by Bullseye. Now, one would believe this is what the spin-off movie would have been about: Elektra would hunt Bullseye down. Combine that with her becoming an assassin solely to have the funds and resources to find, as well as demonstrating more of Bullseye's attraction to her in the first film to mess her up and other connections to the first film and you might have had a decent spin-off. Instead, it's a totally different movie, leaving her vengeance plot unresolved. Likewise, this doubles as a missed opportunity for any more Ham and Cheese and Love to Hate from Colin Farrell.
Kirigi and his followers are clearly meant to be mutants, but are never outright called such, even with Fox owning the rights to both franchises at the time. A more overt connection with the X-Men film universe couldn't have hurt the movie.
Kirsten Prout as Abby is the only other cast member whose performance isn't stilted, hammy, or both.
Visual Effects of Awesome: Although the special effects in general are hit-and-miss, Tattoo's animated tattoos still look pretty impressive even 15 years later.
WTH, Costuming Department?: Elektra's red outfit has been mocked for being a less revealing version of her outfit from Daredevil while being a bright red in an attempt to be closer to the comics. The end result, as one website put it, is basically a "mom's attempt at looking sexy".
Comic
Complete Monster: In Assassin, written by Frank Miller, Arthur Perry is a brutal S.H.I.E.L.D. operative first introduced torturing and murdering a possible "subversive" on the flimsiest suspicion of the man being an assassin. Perry's history, which SHIELD deliberately covered up to keep him on as an agent, is far darker, including the murder of his entire family and episodes of rape and murder dating back to the time he was a kid. When he's brought back with an augmented cyborg body after a brush with Elektra, Perry promptly slaughters the man who brought him back and goes about brutally killing every SHIELD agent in his path. Perry's sociopathy attracts the attention of the demonic Beast, and Perry eagerly signs on with the Beast's plans of destroying all humanity in a nuclear apocalypse.
