3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not good, but worst movie ever? Not at all., December 10, 2009
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (Wych Kaosayananda, 2002)
According to[...], Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is the worst-reviewed movie of the past ten years. While I'm certainly not going to defend the movie, I have to say that, like most movies about which things like this are said, this isn't even the worst movie I've seen this week (both Bled and The Bone Snatcher were quite a bit worse than this), but "real" critics (i.e., the ones who get paid for doing this) never end up seeing stuff like that, so for them, this represents the bottom of the barrel. There are times when I envy them. Most recently, while I was watching Bled and The Bone Snatcher.
I'd try to give you some idea of a plot here, but there's really no reason. What this movie is really about is Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu running around and blowing things up. Why this should surprise anyone is entirely beyond me, given that both of them made their names doing exactly this sort of thing, though even Desperado had a stronger storyline to it than this does. But really, if you're going to see a movie like this for plot, story, and character development, you're probably in the wrong place. This is all about things blowing up, and as far as that goes, it does deliver. Some worthwhile fight scenes offset the incredibly corny dialogue and uninspired direction, so if that's all you're looking for, this should be right up your alley. * ½
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dumb action flick fails to generate anything..., March 4, 2003
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for abandoning plot for action, but on at least one of two conditions: it must be good action OR it must be a Van Damme movie. "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is neither. As a matter of fact, it's not even up there with your average Steven Seagal flick. It has no real plot, just plot elements with one-dimensional characters reciting weak dialogue and getting into long, repetitive gunfights. I'm a die-hard fan of dumb action movies, but even this is too void for my tastes. The cast, while consisting of a few admirable talents, can't seem to keep the movie flowing and the action is trite and devoid of originality. As far as the movie scene goes, "Ballistic" is pure fluff. Mindless and without any direction, it is dead on the screen before the title even flashes.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
decent special effects, but idiotic, cliched non-story, August 14, 2005
I can't believe that only two years after the big hit, Charlie's Angels, Lucy Liu appeared in this made-in-Canada cheapie.
The story is nonsensical and confusing. The DVD's description says Liu is an NSA agent, but she's with the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), sort of.
I say "sort of," because the movie's DIA is not the US Pentagon's DIA, but apparently some "shadow government" in Canada that hires Chinese orphans (girls abandoned by their parents in China due to China's "one child" policy), to be ruthless assassins. The characters in the movie talk of a "shadow goverment" and the film is set in Canada, with Canadian cops chasing people, so I guess they mean a Canadian "shadow government."
However, this "shadow government" is legitamate. We know this, because they get cooperation from the police in trying to kill rogue assassin Lucy Liu. Only, this "shadow government" is also evil and illegitamite, because some FBI people, linked to the Canadian police or DIA or whoever, force ex-FBI agent Antonio Banderas out of retirement to find a child that Lucy Liu kidnapped.
Confusing, no?
In the Special Features, the director says, "In my research, I found that there really is a DIA." Clearly, neither he nor the writer have a clue as to what the DIA is. It's a branch of the Pentagon primarily concerned with military intelligence.
Lucy Liu's assassin dresses in Lara Croft fashion, walking the streets of Vancouver in spandex and a cape. In the Special Feature, Liu says she was intrigued that the assassin was a woman, because it added "a whole other dimension" to the role.
What other dimension? The screen has been full of ass-kicking lady spies since The Avenger's Emma Peel, yet people still talk as if it's a new thing.
The special effects are okay but mostly the usual, with the exception of a police sniper falling onto a car roof. Well shot.
One movie cliche that really annoys me is when you have scores of highly trained troops or snipers blasting away and hitting nothing. Then the hero (or heroine) steps out and blasts them all away. Liu's knocking off dozens of people and not a bullet grazes here.
Anyway, she turns out to be a good assassin who's only trying to kill the head of DIA (or whoever he is) because her kid got killed in a DIA mission gone bad.
I rented this film because it has Talisa Soto, my second-favorite Bond girl. But as usual, her part isn't very large. Soto fans be warned.
Anyway, the script is just awful, even the title. Does anyone even know what an Ecks or Sever is? They're the names of the Bandares and Liu characters, but unlike Lara Croft, they're not previously known names, so why name the movie after them? Nor does the movie have anything especially to do with ballistics, other than that a lot of guns are shot.
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