Here is a film that constantly snickers smugly to itself about how quietly subversive and clever it all is. Unfortunately it snickers alone.
It follows the adventures of Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino), a famed porn star credited with reinvigorating a tired genre in the 90s (by *gasp* making eye contact with the camera), now retired after falling pregnant. No longer a participant, Elektra is now an instructor, running a small workshop on how to sex good… Or something.
But that’s not the core part of the story, for there is none.
Despite having a private investigator, an amateur blogger specialising in porn, a couple with fidelity issues and a horny female porn star who desperately wants to convert her female colleague and friend, none of these subplots go anywhere or count for anything. The surprising part is that despite the film alternating between all of the above stories, none of which are interesting, amusing or even titillating to make you think ‘go back to that one’.
Instead you sit quietly and wait for the credits and/or death to save you.
It’s telling that the only chuckle I got from Elektra Luxx occurred in the post credits faux porno preview. And even that was only thanks to the name. (Psst, it was “Even Reverse Cowgirls get the blues”.)
Carla Gugino tries, Joseph Gordon Levitt finds himself, treading water and waiting for Christopher Nolan or Rian Johnson to call, but not even effort can save a film with such a lazy script and so many pointless events.
Elektra Luxx is not a Barb Wire type exploitation flick, nor is it a Black Dynamite style parody of porn. It’s not even a nudge-nudge wink-wink lazy flick trying to T&A its way into a rental. Put another way, most guys who buy porn films don’t buy it for the bits in between the sex. Here is exhibit A as to what a film that did the reverse would look like.
Elektra Luxx has many hot chicks appearing in supporting roles, many strip down to their undies. If this thought appeals to you might I just say buy a Maxim and save yourself 100 minutes of tedium.
Final Rating – 4 / 10. This is not the whip smart character driven lampoon of the porn industry that it obviously aspires to be. There are porn films with the sex taken out that would be better than this, at let the pizza delivery man has something to do even with his pants on.
