A career low for both Liu and Banderas.
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:107
Fresh:0
Rotten:107
Average Rating:2.6/10
Consensus: A startlingly inept film, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever offers overblown, wall-to-wall action without a hint of wit, coherence, style, or originality.
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: In the mystifying opening sequence of BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER, a double kidnapping takes place on a rainy night in Vancouver with a minimal amount of wasted time and a maximum amount of violence.... In the mystifying opening sequence of BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER, a double kidnapping takes place on a rainy night in Vancouver with a minimal amount of wasted time and a maximum amount of violence. A little boy is picked up at the airport by his mother (Talisa Soto), whose car is stopped minutes later by thugs who steal the boy and say they're taking him to his father. Rounding the corner, the thugs see a car explode in front of them, and a dump truck smashes into a wall of other cars, spraying fire. A hooded martial arts expert takes out the thugs with some impressive kicks and swirls, then grabs the boy and leaves. Secret agent Sever (Lucy Liu) is the kidnapper here, an angry, heavily armed nut who literally goes ballistic for unknown reasons. Using automatic weapons and other highly explosive artillery, she annihilates at least a hundred policeman in the next scene, outside a shopping mall. A retired secret agent, Ecks (Antonio Banderas), is the only man who can stop her, and when he does--temporarily--the two join forces against the real culprit, Robert Gant (Gregg Henry). Gant has crafted a dangerous assassination weapon that triggers death at the push of a button once it is injected into its victim's bloodstream. And that weapon is living inside the little boy. To save him, and stop the weapon from being used again, Ecks and Sever must get Gant. BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER is a super-violent nonstop action extravaganza with a high-octane musical score by Don Davis. It is directed by Kaos. [More]
Starring: Lucy Liu, Antonio Banderas, Gregg Henry, Ray Park
Starring: Lucy Liu, Antonio Banderas, Gregg Henry, Ray Park, Talisa Soto, Miguel Sandoval
Director: Kaos
Director: Kaos
Screenwriter: Alan McElroy
Producer: Elie Samaha, Chris Lee, Andrew Stevens, Kaos
Composer: Don Davis
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
The movie may be called Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, but it could've been called Audience vs. Dozing Off.
Lucy Liu has the silent, exotic, Asian assassin thing down cold in a lackluster action movie with aimless fighting, wimpy villains, and a lame techno soundtrack.
I don't even care that there's no plot in this Antonio Banderas-Lucy Liu faceoff. It's still terrible!
I'm guessing the director is a magician. After all, he took three minutes of dialogue, 30 seconds of plot and turned them into a 90-minute movie that feels five hours long.
Most new movies have a bright sheen. Some, like Ballistic, arrive stillborn... looking like the beaten, well-worn video box cover of seven years into the future.
This is a forgettable picture, with the sad fact that with a little more effort and a veteran’s hand, this film could’ve easily been a more compelling distraction.
Mindless and boring martial arts and gunplay with too little excitement and zero compelling storyline.
Kaos was apparently aiming for a coolly stylized, straight-faced take on Spy vs. Spy. As Maxwell Smart used to say, 'Missed it by that much.'
...The makers of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever [take] so many of our favorite things and [make] such a wretched movie out of them.
It's like going into a gunfight with a half-empty clip - it may seem okay in the beginning, but you aren't going to be happy with the results.
Kaos has promise as a visual stylist, but this movie has no story or characters.
A fine achievement in stupidity and dullness despite plenty of explosions.
Slow in a strange way -- without energy, without imagination, without urgency.
Is “Ballistic” worth the price of admission? Absolutely not. It sucked. Would I see it again? Please see previous answer.
Its murky settings, contemptuous plotting and charmless characters add up to a film in which nothing counts more than death, preferably a spectacularly fiery death.
The film makers treat this movie like we already know the characters and they need no development.
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