Ballistic

Tasked with destroying each other, an FBI agent and a rogue DIA agent soon discover that there's a much bigger enemy at work.

The film has been called one of the worst movies ever made. At the box office, the film made $19.9 million on a $70 million budget. With a total of 116 reviews, the highest for a film with a 0% score, "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is the worst reviewed film in the history of Rotten Tomatoes.

The first thing wrong, really, is the title. Not knowing who Ecks or Sever are, why do I care if they are versus each other? Just call the film "Ballistic" so it doesn't sound like a sequel to a movie nobody saw. I'm guessing some ticket sales were lost because of the misconception of it being a sequel.

Of course, that would not make it a better movie, but it would at least be less confusing.

Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. In a movie like this, the producers don't pay expensive actors to act or to create realistic performances or to use their talents to win our sympathy. No, they pay these actors for face and name recognition, so when a movie like Ballistic: Banderas vs Liu comes along we don't have the inconvenience of learning about characters and plot. Hell, we don't even have the inconvenience of wondering, "Is this actor hot while all this excitement rushes them by?" Name recognition, baby, it's all marketed by name recognition.

And why should they let actors acting take up precious moments from the rooftop chases, the explosions, the gunfire, and posing like models? Everyone already knows these actors right? No need to develop anything more than flimsy excuses for action/motivation, right? Sarcasm aside - I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I think Ballistic would have been a better, more sophisticated, film if they scrapped the plot and cliché character developments and just went for 90 minutes of uninterrupted Banderas and Liu gunning at each other backdropped by a slow-mo explosions.

This film would have to scale a cliff before reaching the level of plot intricacies and intelligence that just thrive in Michael Bay films.

We get a crappy plot and crappy characterizations anyway just in case we don't have a favorite actor to root for. We get ultra cliché scenarios that anyone who has been to a theatre in the last fifty years will pick up on. Oh no, a child's been kidnapped – we're supposed to sympathize with the boy. There's the old (young?) has-been former cop (FBI guy in this movie) who lost his motivation – we're supposed to sympathize with him and the loss of his family. And then there's--oh, but wait? What are these plot revelations? What are they pointing towards? Gasp! They're making the already obvious villain even more obvious! Me? I was rooting for the aliens from Independence Day to come down and blow them all up, but the bastards got stuck in traffic.

Somewhere in the movie is a subplot about a nano-assassin, but I cared about that as much as the movie does.

And since we're being honest, I admit this is a great film to watch after a night of provocative and cultured cinema to recalibrate your personal scale to the realities of the industry. Like I explained to the guy at Blockbuster, "I just got a box-set of Hitchcock, been watching those back to back, and the other day I watched De Palma's Femme Fatale. I need something trashy before I become a full-blown film snob." So I walked out with Ballistic and Shark Attack 3, went home, and turned off my mind for a marathon of stock footage and needless gunfire/explosions . . . and all was well.

Let me just open by saying "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is by far one of the dumbest, most god forsaken titles I have ever heard of.It's 2 titles over crammed into one.It's just an awful title.

So,here's the deal with this movie.The story side of it sucks.It's predictable, cliched, unbelieviable, and just loaded with plot holes.By the end,I don't really care about what's going on.

But...on the other hand...they just blow s--- up alot in this movie! And I got to hand it to them,blowing s--- up is pretty damn cool! Really, the "plot" of this movie is just a cover so they can have some really cool explosions.And that's not a bad thing.Because explosions in movies are cool.Also,the fighting sequences and shootouts are really cool too.

Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu do a fairly good job here,but the plot is beyond what their acting can save.Even though they are the 2 big name stars in the movie,the real stars of the movie are those oh so cool explosions!

I'm going to give this movie a 6 out of 10,which is way more then this movie really deserves.If I was judging this for for it's plot,it would be a 1 of 10,because the script is on the level of "Glitter" or a Joel Schumacher Batman movie.The reason my rating is that high is simply because I like the explosions...the explosions are cool!

1/2 out of ****

I'm not typically a particularly demanding moviegoer when it comes to action films; just give me well-choreographed mayhem set amidst a plot that makes a little bit of a sense or a few engaging characters and I'll probably be reasonably pleased. Ballistic fails to follow even that, which explains why the film bored the hell out of me. I'm almost hesitant to say this, but the latest straight-to-video Jean-Claude Van Damme schlock might actually be better than Ballistic, which was arguably 2002's worst film (I've never seen Rollerball).

There's something of a plot here, but I'm not entirely sure what the hell was going on. Antonio Banderas plays FBI Agent Ecks, Lucy Liu is Agent Sever, and the two of them are duking it out because they somehow have crossed paths with a wealthy man (Gregg Henry) who is determined to smuggle a small electronic device that can assassinate its intended victim via heart attack. Mixed up in it all is Talisa Soto as Banderas' supposedly dead wife, only she's not really dead. Much mayhen ensues.

Ballistic is directed by Kaos, a Thai filmmaker who apparently wanted his movies to live up to his name. This is his first American feature and he shows almost no ability in crafting an action sequence. Martial arts fights that should get the adrenaline-pumping are so stiltedly choreographed, it'll inspire either laughs or yawns. Kaos also goes overboard on the slow motion, ensuring there's never an opportunity for the fight scenes to build momentum. And this is the only film I can think of where the people involved in a car chase actually follow the speed limit!

I feel a bit sorry for the cast here, particularly Lucy Liu, whose martial arts talents are squandered here. To date, she hasn't been much of an actress, but she looks and convincingly acts tough so such a role here must have seemed like a good idea. For Banderas, this is the third film where he has trouble with mysterious women. I've heard of typecasting, but never to such a ridiculous extent. The only thing keeping this guy's career afloat is Robert Rodriguez and that Spy Kids franchise.

Oh my. Where do I start with this one. Let me just say, this is the film that turned me off from Hollywood action films for good. Swayed by the cool poster and sweet tv ads, I actually paid $10 to see this at the cinema. Boy, was I a fool. I was expecting to see a fun, enjoyable action flick, but that isn't what I got. This excuse for an action film has to be the most boring and dull excuses for a movie I've ever seen. Don't listen to those who tell you it's a fun, mindless action film... it's not. Sure, there are lots of explosions, guns, martial arts and what not... but it has nothing to back it up. The script is flat, the actors are terrible and the story is full of plotholes. Sure, Lucy Liu beats up a lot of people... but her character is so boring and emotionless that she doesn't come off as cool as she should have. I mean, she barely says a word throughout the whole movie. Yes, lines DO matter in an action film. It all plays out like a video game... and I can see why; it was intended to be one. They should'nt have made a movie out of it though. Avoid this one at all costs, unless you're too easily pleased.