Ballistic

`Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever' has been saddled with not only one of the worst movie titles in recent memory, but one of the worst screenplays as well. The film's third-rate espionage plot makes no sense at all and serves basically as a lame excuse for endless explosions, shootouts and double-flipping car chases, which have become the standard accoutrements for virtually every action picture since `Bullitt' in 1968.

The problem with `Ballistic' is that the viewer can never tell who is doing what to whom or why – and we never care. The film is really all about style anyway. How else to account for the rather ludicrous image of Lucy Liu - looking more like a fashion model out on a shoot than a trained killer doing the shooting herself - strolling in elegant slow motion through the streets of Vancouver, wiping out what seems to be an entire hit squad with a combination of superhuman marksmanship and Matrix-like kickboxing moves? With her ankle-length designer coat and her icy-cool demeanor, she looks like Calvin Klein's idea of what the well-dressed assassin should be wearing this season. It's enough to reduce the whole enterprise to the level of comic absurdity – and, indeed, I often found myself laughing out loud at many of the ostensibly serious shenanigans occurring in the film. The flashbacks, which are obviously intended to clarify the characters' relationships, are so poorly done that they actually end up making the whole story more muddled and confusing. (And, although the child-kidnapping scenario is never as offensive in this film as it is in `Trapped,' one can still question the propriety of filmmakers running to this theme with the kind of frequency they seem to have been doing of late).

Antonio Banderas makes up the other half of the film's title (he is Ecks, she Sever), and one only wonders what he could have been thinking about when he signed on to co-star in this particular project. `Ballistic' is utterly dispensable moviemaking: here today, forgotten tomorrow, a film utterly without distinction, conviction or purpose.

When I say "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" was incredible, I don't mean that in a good way. All the main characters are current or former US federal agents, presumably to keep it interesting, but all the action takes places in Vancouver, BC, which, last time I looked, was not in the United States. The basic storyline was fairly straightforward (and rather hackneyed), but the motivations of the various characters were utterly incomprehensible. The film was somewhat on the short side, and I couldn't escape the feeling that the three scenes which might have tied together the loose ends inexplicably ended up on the cutting room floor. Banderas phoned in his performance (for God's sake, enunciate, man), and the musical score was just irritating. The only two things "Ballistic" had going for it were the presence of some rarely-seen hardware (fun for you firearms buffs) and some spectacular action sequences (though these were plagued by some annoying clichés, such as a protective vest preventing all injury to a character, and henchmen showing complete disregard for personal safety), and these were simply not enough to save this turkey. Avoid.

Once in a while, a movie comes out that just defies logic. Sometimes logic is defied in how rewarding the watching experience was, say like with the Sixth Sense. Sometimes logic is defied in such a way as to make you question the mental state of those involved with giving this movie the "greenlight". This is not necessarily a good thing. This movie hurts on so many levels that it could be considered a cruel and inhuman torture to be made to sit through this. Everything about this movie screams bargain bin. With the exception of one scene (see below), this movie pretty much blows. Antonio Banderas is absolutely useless in this picture. You'd think from the ad campaign, let alone the fact that the movie is titled "Ecks vs. Sever", that he would be more of a serious ass kicker. No, no. The only one who gets to do any serious ass kicking is Lucy Liu and I'm 100% positive that she did this one only to pay the bills. Even with that revelation, she still sucked in it. The direction is pretty much what you'd expect from someone who goes by the name, "Kaos" but sometimes I'd like a little order to my chaos, ya know? I read a quote somewhere, where they said, 'who knew so much action could be so boring?' That's definitely the case here. Yeah there's a lot of action but it's of the direct-to-video variety. God, help me but this movie sucked. It wasn't even of the "so bad, it's good" type of flick. The story is incomprehensible, something about microscopic termites and little babies blown to smithereens and wives that bounce on you and the guy from Payback and.... AARRRRGGGHHH!!! I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I can't recommend this to anyone. I'll give it a 1/2* out of ***** ONLY and I repeat, ONLY because of the aforementioned scene where some guy is knocked off of a rooftop by a grenade launcher and is shown falling to his death onto a parked car. If you want one reason to watch this, that's it. But don't say I didn't warn you.

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.

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.