Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ballistic - we've been here before, October 13, 2006
I wanted to give it three stars, I really did! However, a three star rating would have put this film at "average" and frankly, there is too much here to make it below average. A Junior High jock would love it. Not much acting, some great chase scenes involving cars, trucks and speed bikes. Explosions galore, and tons of sub-machine gunfire with plenty of bad guys to soak up the discharge.
The movies plot centers around a corporate high tech guru named Grant, whose son is kidnapped by a trained assassin type (Lui). Gant by now has been portrayed as a corrupt jerk, an rightfully so; he has stolen a technology that is a doomsday device of sorts...the problem is, the device was implanted in his son so he could smuggle it across the border! Now enter Antonio Banderas (playing the part of Jeremy). Jeremy is a former agent presumed dead who also has a special tie to Gant's current wife, who obviously does not care for her husband but just wants her son back. Through all the drama is the center of attention in Lui, whose character (Sever) is a one-woman army, taking out dozens of SWAT members at every turn, block, tennis court, school playground, and swimming pool in the city. At least with the constant overboard of machinegun fire (with Sever NEVER getting grazed let alone hit) coupled with the pyrotechnics, they did not throw in the Matrix/Crouching Poodle Hidden Porcupine bulletstopaction ridiculousness that has become a staple even in the lower budget action flicks. Lower budget? I should say lower grade, this film went OVER budget with how many Chryslers were wrecked during the chase scenes!
Bottom line, its to cliché', and often times the fight scenes are hokey. As said before, if you want something with car chases and explosions topped off with lots of ammo being emptied, this is your movie. Despite a decent storyline it is really nothing we have seen before. Lui doesn't talk much at all taking away from any special conviction that she can be any more than a "Charlie's Angel". Banderas does what he can only do, sit at a bar, act like he wants revenge, and pull low-toned one-liners like a tough guy. It is what it is, a B-grade action flick.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I wish I'd saved my money..., December 27, 2002
Yep, I saw all of the reviews about how bad this movie was before I purchased it but figured, what the heck, I like action films and I like Banderas so why not give it a try? Well, hubby and I took three days to finish watching this movie. No, nothing was wrong with our DVD player, it's just that we kept falling asleep on it. There's nothing about the movie that kept our eyes glued to the television screen for lengthy periods. What's good? If you like action, there's a lot of it here. Crashing cars, car and motorcycle chases, explosions, shoot'em ups, and lots of fighting are sprinkled liberally throughout the movie. What's bad? Most of the action seems mindless, and the movie plays like a wannabe movie. (They wanted it to be something that it isn't.) There is a plot and you can follow it, but some of the action seems overlong or present just to extend the time of the movie or maybe because they figured the action would draw in the moviegoers who would forget about all else. With some of the fighting and clothing, I got a glimpse of the Matrix -- much lower scale mind you, but the Matrix came to mind nonetheless. With the motorcycle chase scene, Mission Impossible II came to mind. Again, the scenes here are nowhere near the quality of Mission Impossible, but it came to mind too. The acting is decent but none of it will pull you in and make you really care for the story being told. This could be because of the dialog -- it was okay but the actors didn't have a whole lot to work with. Overall, while the movie wasn't horrible I wish I'd rented it instead of buying it because it's one that I have no desire to watch again. On a lighter note, my husband and I did have a good time laughing at the various scenes (which weren't supposed to be funny) and calling out the movies that this one copied parts from. My recommendation: if you've just got to see it, rent it. Otherwise, save your money.
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7 of 8 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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