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Review by Dustin Putman
½ star out of 4
To get a general idea of how stunningly inept "Ballistic: Ecks vs.
Sever" is, take a good look at its name: there are two separate titles
to be found, and neither makes any sense in relation to the film's
storyline. "Ballistic?" Purely generic, direct-to-video fare. "Ecks
vs. Sever?" These two lead characters aren't even fighting each other;
they're on the same side! As dumbfoundedly plotted and joylessly executed
as a big-budget action flick could possibly be, the only entertainment
one may be able to pull out of suffering through 89 minutes of "Ballistic:
Ecks vs. Sever" is a helping handful of hearty, unintended laughs.
The basic premise--or what there is of it--tells of mopey FBI agent
Jeremiah Ecks (Antonio Banderas), who is promised new information
about his allegedly deceased wife (Talisa Soto) in return for investigating
the kidnapping of fellow agent Gant's (Gregg Henry) son. The kidnapper,
it turns out, is ruthless DIA agent Sever (Lucy Liu), a deadly martial
arts and weapon expert who is actually out to save the young boy and
kill the crooked Gant. When Ecks discovers that his wife is alive
and well, after all, remarried to the backstabbing Gant, he teams
up with Sever to stop Gant once and for all. A key plot point involving
a microchip that fits into a person's body and has the power to kill
them is so preposterous I dare not utter another word about it.
As a whole, "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever," directed by Wych Kaosayananda
(Kaos, for short), is so ridiculous it has to be seen to be believed,
though such an idea would be ill-advised. How such a hyper-stylized,
action-packed film filled with more explosions than any other movie
I've ever seen could manage to be mercilessly boring is a feat worth
marveling. There is no immediacy to the proceedings, no excitement,
no rooting interest, and no driving force offered for why the viewer
should invest time and care into any of it. If Kaos should have learned
one thing from his experiences on "Ballistic," we can only hope it
was that a nonstop avalanche of nifty pyrotechnics does not a successful action pic make.
Not helping matters are the usually reliable Antonio Banderas (2002's
"Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams") and Lucy Liu (2000's "Charlie's
Angels"), whose yawn-inducing portrayals of Ecks and Sever suggest
they were heavily medicated on Dramamine for the duration of the film
shoot. Banderas sulks and looks earnest, but there is no flair or
depth to his assortment of frowns. Meanwhile, Liu has a total of about
ten lines of dialogue (if that), doing nothing but running around
the city of Vancouver while putting to destructive use her arsenal
of bombs, guns, and missiles. Curious, how Sever can blatantly hover
above a highway overpass with a huge missile in hand, and none of
the cars below even flinch. Funny, too, how she lives in a literal
underground lair that looks every bit as cliched as the term suggests.
Coming from any viewpoint possible, "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is
horrendously amateurish filmmaking that is plainly dull and visually
ugly when it isn't incomprehensible, and offensively one-note when
it isn't unintentionally humor-filled. Plot holes too large and numerous
to disregard litter every corner of the story, as does one tedious
explosion after the next. What Banderas, Liu, or anyone else saw in
this project is not even hinted at in the finished product. In making
"Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever," director Kaos has proven his sheer disrespect
for the intelligence of mainstream audience members. To him, we are
not merely viewers, but genuine fools.
Copyright © 2002 Dustin Putman
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out of 4
