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Ballistic - Ecks vs. Sever

Ballistic - Ecks vs. Sever

List Price: $14.97
Your Price: $11.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: seattleshooter
Review: Well first you have to ask your self what is the reason you watch movies. And if you answer to be entertained, well this is the movie for you, what it lacks in a solid plot it makes up for in action. I myself love action movies. So if you want to see a lot of kicking ...and explosions check it out. Antonio Banderas and Lucy Lui both do a great job, but I enjoy the work of both actors. Having said that, check it out I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Terrible, Terrible, Terrible!
Review: I usually am inclined to be forgiving about movies and usually enjoy even those that many others don't care for but this movie is so bad even I can find nothing (and I mean NOTHING!) good to say about it.(well I guess Talisa Soto is great looking)The plot is utter nonsense and makes no sense, stuff keeps blowing up for no reason, and what dialogue there is stinks. The characters are silly or stupid, the action scenes are far from first rate, and the climax is pretty silly. In conclusion do yourself a favor and stay away from the dreck. Go rent a good Banderas action\adventure film like Mask of Zorro instead.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Quality vs. Crapola
Review: Okay, I can hardly believe that there are people here who are actually hyping up this stinker of a movie. I can only assume those people are Lucy Liu fans in denial that she made such a bomb, or hardcore action junkies who think anything with big guns is kewl. This couldn't have been worse if it was titled Battlefield Ballistic. The plot is all over the place. Lucy Liu's assasin seeking some sort of redemption idea is played out yet unfulfilled, and Antonio Banderas has never looked older or lamer in his attempt to remain young(stick to Spy Kids, Zorro).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: ... Vs Blow
Review: The producers of outrage can thank the producers of "Rollerball" for insuring that there [bad movie] can only merit "second worst film of 2002." Lots of silly action movies are great, I don't concern myself with realism or much plot, I like explosions and I love Lucy Lui. This had lots of thing blowing up and lots of Lucy (although overdressed I thought), so why was this so brain numbingly bad? I believe it was the fundamental cluelessness of the writers and directors. The idea behind this mess was so incredibly stupid as to make me do a double take when I heard it. It seems the bad guy has developed "the ultimate killing machine" Why? Because he wanted to circumvent "The Human Factor" a machine would not hesitate like a human would (of course a machine would not know who to kill or when without a human but never mind that). Lucy is one of those mystical Asians who is trained in some bazaar flavor of martial art which enables her to disappear or to walk around with a machine gun and not be seen etc. The crime here is that this moron "Kahos" or something, the director, thinks this hokum is serious and treats in as such with many, many tedious scenes of characters in slow motion standing in front of explosions (There are lots of explosions) for no reason. When not blowing things up they are forced to recite page after page of mind numbing psychobable laying out this absurd history. Ecker (Sever, I can't remember who was who) has an ex wife who marries the bad guy has a kid says "I am his wife I. name only blah blah blah. Lui was from China, a girl (They don't want girls over there) so she was put in the top secret Chinese explosion, gun unit of the blah blah blah... When you thought the film could not get any stupider, it does climax fight in one of those steam and flame factories, you know the ones, they don't have employees or manufacture anything but there is lots of steam and flame jumping out of nowhere ends with Lucy Lui revealing, I believe, that she could have stopped this mess long ago with the touch of a button, of course we would have been spared this horrible film. The cops show up in force after all the action has ended (ALA Batman, the TV series, which is much more believable). Also Lucy Lui kidnaps a child in the beginning, we are not sure why, she just does, the little tike spends days in a cage and never seems to mind, or have to go to the bathroom or anything....perhaps he is silently thankful he is in the cage and not in the theater. Films like this make me question humanity as a species, perhaps some other species should take over, the roaches or something, at least they would not make films like this. I don't think.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A tough call...
Review: Its hard to judge this movie. I think it had the potential to be a great movie, but just suffered too much on the cutting room floor. The problem with this movie is NOT that it doesn't have a plot. It actually has a very interesting idea behind the story, but the problem with the movie is that it wanted to be a suspense flick. Deep down at its roots, this movie was originally intended to fall in the suspense genre. I think what happened is that too much of the story got cut or poorly edited, so in the end the story just leaves the viewer confused, rather than intrigued. Too much is left unexplained, so the viewer is left confused about what's really going on. In a good suspense movie, all the questions are answered at some point, unless a sequel is intended. So for a final analysis, I gave this movie 2 stars because it does have good action, and the potential for a good plot. In fact, if you go with freinds or family, you can even have fun afterwards talking about what was really going on.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Truth vs. Lies...Agent vs. Agent...Ecks vs. Sever!!
Review: About a month ago, I saw "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" in the theater, and I thought that the action in it was awesome! Two of the best Hollywood favorites today, Antonio Banderas ("The Mask of Zorro") and Lucy Liu ("Charlie's Angels") team up to bring this adrenaline-pumping action-thriller to the big screen. And also the work of first-time director Wych Kaosayananda was extraordinary! "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" focuses on a grief-ridden former FBI agent named Jeremiah Ecks (Banderas). Ecks is brought back to the service by his long-time comrade (Miguel Sandoval) to investigate a serious threat in the form of a deadly rogue operative named Sever (Liu). The thing, to Ecks, about tracking down Sever is that she might hold the answer's to his wife's (Talisa Soto) mysterious death. Or is she even dead at all?? As the movie progresses, Ecks and Sever team up to take down the bad guys as well as fighting their way through a murky world of shadow agents. You see, Lucy Liu's role of Sever was originally written for a man. But the director thought it would be more interesting to cast a woman for the part--yet leave the script unchanged. The fight scenes in the film were choreographed with no flaws whatsoever, especially the scene when Lucy Liu was beating those cops senseless with those retractable metal rods of hers. To me, she's like a Charlie's Angel without that faceless, intercom-speaking Charlie (I wouldn't be surprised at all if they didn't show his face again in "Charlie's Angels 2", but that's another story). But anyway, in conclusion, this film has it all! Great performances from Banderas and Liu, a stellar supporting cast including Gregg Henry ("Payback") and Ray Park ("Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace", "X-Men", upcoming "X-Men 2"), and action after action after action all the way from explosive start to explosive finish! "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is the best action film that I've seen since Banderas and Liu were teamed up for the first time in the comedy, "Play It To the Bone"! I can't wait for the DVD release of "Ballistic"!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Nearly as bad as the title
Review: If you thought XXX was brainless, you ain't seen nothing yet, baby. Cause here comes Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. This was a film that was determined to kill any sense of cohesion, plot, and fun. And I got news for ya, baby: when a film does that, it bombs at the box office. Indeed, while it's true that you should judge the merits of a film for yourself, when you see such a united hatred by film critics, you gotta know that where there's smoke.....there's fire. There is no acting in the movie. All the participants merely behave really seriously and say their silly dialogue with straight faces. The plot? Please don't ask. Yes, this was meant to be an action flick -- not high art. But the action in this film is no where near exciting. Indeed, what's up with the R rating? The violence is tame. I could go on and on, but I'll end it here: Just when you though it couldn't get worse than Pluto Nash....

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: I love Lucy Liu. I like Antonio Banderas. I love action movies. I hate movies that have completely unrealistic explosions and obviously coreographed stunts/car crashes. This movie was full of both - cars that are blown by McVeigh size explosions straight up in the air, simply by being shot at; two cars that simultaneously barrel roll after running into a wrecked truck; people unhurt by being engulfed in flaming explosions; etc.

Add to this general [poo-iness], a dismal story. It was awful, predictable, cookie cutter, plain, unimaginative, sophmoric, [dumb], [word], and pukey. Even the premise of the movie, a microscopic, injectible, and remote controlled death micro-machine (which is a pretty cool element) was not fleshed out at all. Here you go folks, a death machine. Plot element. We stole it, and put it under the skin of the main villains child to smuggle it out of the country. No explanation of how it was stolen, why it was stolen, how it was built, who built it, why it was built, how it works, who wants it, how to inject it, how to get it out -- nothing. Period. Anyways, this thing unexplainably will kill whoever it is injected into within a certain time, or it can kill that person by remote control. Hey, I see I'm rambling....sorry.

I just want to reiterate, if you love Lucy Liu, go rent "Payback," she's great in that, and save yourself the eight bucks for this stinker.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An action film that just wants to be an action film.
Review: Let's face it: sometimes you want a movie where stuff blows up, many bullets are fired, vehicles crash, and the heroes do cool things in slow motion. BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER is that kind of a movie. Straightforward action-adventure is to be had during BALLISTIC's lean and mean running time. Everything else has been reduced to the bare essentials, but when the heroes of the day are played with such skill by the lead actors, and the production values delivered by the movie are so high, this hardly matters.

BALLISTIC's storyline is almost inconsequential. There are bad guys and good guys and something everybody wants to get their hands on. Violence ensues. For the typical B-grade actioner, this would be enough. The characters would be of the blandest, cookie-cutter variety, and the actors would phone in their performances. Direction and cinematography would be plain and workmanlike. What makes BALLISTIC special is that no one lets the movie go down that path.

Banderas, as veteran covert operative Ecks, creates a character essentially out of whole cloth. An excellent physical actor, as his body of work can attest, Banderas as Ecks is as weather-beaten as an old raincoat, turning even simple lines and moments into well-crafted gems that speak volumes about his character even when the film doesn't allow time to get into the details. Lucy Liu, as rogue secret agent Sever, crafts a mask of Zen stillness over her role, bottling up the emotional life of her character to the point that it's what the audience doesn't learn about Sever that's the most telling. In the hands of a lesser actor, Sever could have been wooden and lifeless. As Liu plays her, Sever's outward calm serves as a counterpoint to the explosive violence she is often at the center of.

Wych Kaosayananda, the Thai director making his English-language debut with BALLISTIC, has the good sense to let the film stand on its own. He doesn't showcase his actors in any special way, but instead creates an environment in which the characters interact, shoot things, and blow things up. He has an excellent eye for moments when slow motion can heighten the impact of what the audience sees, and his cinematographer, Julio Macat, doesn't overpower the action with showy camera work.

No one involved in the production forgets for a moment that they are there to create excitement. BALLISTIC moves at a breakneck pace from start to finish, barely stopping to take a breath or explain anything as it happens. One action sequence crashes into another so rapidly that when the quiet moments come, and they do come, the audience is half expecting to see the dialogue interrupted by another burst of gunfire, or an out-of-control vehicle. It's a credit to the performers, and the taut screenplay, that there's an opportunity to care about the characters or the situation they're in.

BALLISTIC is not an instant classic, but it is a cut above the dreck that so often passes for action cinema. Strong performances from Banderas, Liu, and the entire cast (don't miss Ray Park in a small role as a brooding and deadly covert operative) are complemented by the seriousness with which those behind the camera take the material. There's no shortage of action, and there's even enough subtlety in the plot and characters to reward repeat viewings. What else could a moviegoer ask for, except free popcorn?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ok get it straight people
Review: ecks and sever are not lifelong enemies, they don't even know eachother until the begining of the film. Now if you go in expecting a great storyline your gunna be dissapoited, if you go in expecting action and cool fights, youll be ecstatic. Very impressive and well done action moments. The story is cheesy and the aquarium moment is very stupid. I thought that if ecks's wife wanted him dead and was in on it, would have made it more exciting and made a better story. But all and all, cool


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