Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002) User Reviews (290)

Not to be taken seriously, but entertaining at 3 AM

[mstomaso · 3/10 · 7 February 2005]

I gave this movie a 3 of 10 which, I guess, makes me one of its biggest fans in my age group(I'm 41, and the highest ratings for this film averaged 2.5 at the time of my writing and were limited to sub-18 year olds).

Banderas and Liu saved this film from deserving the rating it got here on IMDb. The film is certainly pointless, loaded with ridiculous plot twists and absurd action sequences, but how many action films don't fit this description? Seriously, if you want to see what two entertaining actors and a lot of wasted film can do together, this film is worth a look. it's plot heavy, bit soul-less and clichéd, but entertaining nonetheless.

I turned it on at 3AM one sleepless night because I wanted to see what the heck Liu and Banderas were doing in a direct to video film. Expecting a thoroughly dreadful film, I was pleasantly surprised, and found the film to be entertaining. The film views like a series of strung together early-80s MTV videos with a contemporary hard rock sound track, plenty of loud noises and explosions, and, thankfully, few words.

To the extent that I remember it, the plot was about Banderas trying to rescue his wife and son from the clutches of some very evil super-secret spy types (who are nevertheless apparently exceedingly inept). A lot of stuff got blown up - in fact most of the sets were heavily rigged with explosives which seemed to go off at random intervals. Of course there were a lot of gunshots, fists, and kicks. I don't recall any swords or phasers though. If I say anything about Lucy Liu at all, I will give away the rest of the plot (which ought to tell you something about the quality of the script and the complexity of the plot) Lighten up! It's bad, but it's just a B movie. And this is what B movies are supposed to be about. By the way, a better choice for an utterly stupid action/violence flick is the masterpiece of violence surrealism "Mean Guns"

What the What?

[gavin6942 · 4/10 · 5 September 2017]

Tasked with destroying each other, an FBI agent and a rogue DIA agent soon discover that there's a much bigger enemy at work.

The film has been called one of the worst movies ever made. At the box office, the film made $19.9 million on a $70 million budget. With a total of 116 reviews, the highest for a film with a 0% score, "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is the worst reviewed film in the history of Rotten Tomatoes.

The first thing wrong, really, is the title. Not knowing who Ecks or Sever are, why do I care if they are versus each other? Just call the film "Ballistic" so it doesn't sound like a sequel to a movie nobody saw. I'm guessing some ticket sales were lost because of the misconception of it being a sequel.

Of course, that would not make it a better movie, but it would at least be less confusing.

It's not that bad

[MetalMania88 · 5/10 · 6 June 2020]

I barely understand why this film was harshly panned and it even has a 0 rating on rotten tomatoes but I wouldn't go that far sure it's not a great movie or even a good movie but at least it was entertaining and has a decent cinematography for action flicks it may not be as good an action thriller as the Michael bay films nor the citizen Kane of entertaining popcorn action flicks but at least it has good explosions like a usuall Michael bay film has and speaking of that this looks just like a Michael bay it felt like he may well have made it because it really looks like a film of his and also it has a good performance from Antonio banderas it is basically about secret agents trying to fight an enemy who is sever but she and Ecks however become teamates after sever real eases him from prison things are a little pointless here and that the story is unrealistic and nonsensical but this film is at least something similar to being a guilty pleasure for a watch it may be bad to most moviegoers and reviewers but at least it's better than battlefield earth, Inchon and the uwe boll drinkers such as alone in the dark which somehow has a 1 appproval rating of rotten tomatoes I thought that was what really deserved the 0 rating and ballistic ecks vs sever only a 1 approval or perhaps it should be at least 20 or 30 perfect rotten it is very underated and could possibly be good for a cult classic or a misunderstood masterpiece i personally would say its on the same level as ghost rider spirit of vengeance and the league of extrordinary gentlemen I would rank this on the same level as them with movies that don't deserve their poor rating anyhow this film is really not as bad as the viewers have said its not a good movie but at least it's cool to watch when you want to turn off your brain and have fun with dumb fun action films and this is one of them.

It blowed stuff up, and blowed up more

[jaywolfenstien · 18 May 2005]

Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. In a movie like this, the producers don't pay expensive actors to act or to create realistic performances or to use their talents to win our sympathy. No, they pay these actors for face and name recognition, so when a movie like Ballistic: Banderas vs Liu comes along we don't have the inconvenience of learning about characters and plot. Hell, we don't even have the inconvenience of wondering, "Is this actor hot while all this excitement rushes them by?" Name recognition, baby, it's all marketed by name recognition.

And why should they let actors acting take up precious moments from the rooftop chases, the explosions, the gunfire, and posing like models? Everyone already knows these actors right? No need to develop anything more than flimsy excuses for action/motivation, right? Sarcasm aside - I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I think Ballistic would have been a better, more sophisticated, film if they scrapped the plot and cliché character developments and just went for 90 minutes of uninterrupted Banderas and Liu gunning at each other backdropped by a slow-mo explosions.

This film would have to scale a cliff before reaching the level of plot intricacies and intelligence that just thrive in Michael Bay films.

We get a crappy plot and crappy characterizations anyway just in case we don't have a favorite actor to root for. We get ultra cliché scenarios that anyone who has been to a theatre in the last fifty years will pick up on. Oh no, a child's been kidnapped – we're supposed to sympathize with the boy. There's the old (young?) has-been former cop (FBI guy in this movie) who lost his motivation – we're supposed to sympathize with him and the loss of his family. And then there's--oh, but wait? What are these plot revelations? What are they pointing towards? Gasp! They're making the already obvious villain even more obvious! Me? I was rooting for the aliens from Independence Day to come down and blow them all up, but the bastards got stuck in traffic.

Somewhere in the movie is a subplot about a nano-assassin, but I cared about that as much as the movie does.

And since we're being honest, I admit this is a great film to watch after a night of provocative and cultured cinema to recalibrate your personal scale to the realities of the industry. Like I explained to the guy at Blockbuster, "I just got a box-set of Hitchcock, been watching those back to back, and the other day I watched De Palma's Femme Fatale. I need something trashy before I become a full-blown film snob." So I walked out with Ballistic and Shark Attack 3, went home, and turned off my mind for a marathon of stock footage and needless gunfire/explosions . . . and all was well.

Negative review *spoiler warning*

[frankmilne · 1/10 · 11 October 2002]

This is a review chock full of spoilers. I find it difficult to express why I disliked this film as much as I did without expressly pointing out key scenes and events that made me cringe while attempting to enjoy a thoughtless summer film. I did approch this film as just that. I am a guy who likes a thoughtless action film more often than not. I love thoughtful ones but the thoughtless ones can truly be fun. xXx comes to mind. I was expecting something along those lines when I came to see Ballistic. What it turned out to be was a number of explosions that seemed to occur for no reason what so ever. To say there was little plot bringing these explosions together is a given. That comes with the territory, but in this case the reasons are even below the lowest C movie in quality. No one reacts to an event the way you'd expect a normal human being to react. In fact the two main characters were so devoid oh personality I have come to wonder whether or not they were both blackmailed into performing the roles. I'm used to Lucy Liu not showing any on screen personality but Antonio consistently show's his "Latin Lover" charm. Not here.

* spoilers begin below *

Everyone is out to get Lucy Liu. No one seems to know where to find her. In fact they need to draw an FBI agent 7 years out of retirement to capture her. His groundbreaking method of investigation is to sit in a car listen to a radio and carry on dull conversations with secondary characters. Meanwhile across town Lucy Liu is walking in circles for no reason in a coffee bar. The bad guys know this and have snipers set up all over the place that would make the Kennedy assassination look like amateur night. How is it that they don't know where she hides out but knows when and where she's going to walk in circles? After giving the order not to hurt her immediately all snipers try to kill her and an overly armed SWAT team hit's the scene. By overly armed I mean they have grenade launchers and heavy machine-guns all designed to kill as many innocent bystanders as possible. In fact the FX crew even botched the way rifle mounted grenade launches work and turned them into mini rocket launchers. But fear not, they don't use them. They are just there for Lucy to pick up and level 12 city blocks with. I often wondered how it is if she were so professional she'd stand in one place and take on an army rather than just slip away in the crowd.

Once the mayhem is complete Antonio arrives glances at a few bullet holes and declares that the FBI should pick up and not investigate the devastation because `she's not done here.' I was able to relate to the FBI assistant directors baffled expression in this scene because I wouldn't know what to say to one of my agents who asked me to pull out all of my investigators cause the criminal might be coming back. Wouldn't you want to catch her?

Skipping ahead to what I assume is the largest injustice here. Antonio finds his wife to learn that for the past 7 years she was in bed with the big bad guy of the film. Married to him in fact. He confronts her in an aquarium while she is contentedly looking at whales, which must be where she goes whenever her son is kidnapped and threatened to be killed within 12 hours. And she also proceeded to have Antonio's son, who has been raised by her and the man who;

1) Tried to hill Antonio's character.

2) Faked the death of himself and Antonio's wife in an effort to `have her to himself'. Which evidently worked for 7 years.

When confronted she reveals that she had knowledge that Antonio was not dead and in fact always really loved him and not the big villain. She only stayed with him to `protect their son'. By having the son live with this guy? Give me a break! But what's worse is Antonio's reaction. He instantly understands and forgives her. No anger, no slap for her lack of logic. It's all OK. Lets go get the bad guy now. Honestly that ended the film for me. I was through.

Can't we go into negative ratings?

[dbborroughs · 1/10 · 12 March 2004]

I liked the trailers, I hoped for the best and then sat in dumbstruck horror as one of the worst films ever made (as in so bad its painful to watch bad) unspooled before my eyes. Rumor has it that the film makers know a thing about movie making. I know the cast does, but what wanders across the screen looks like the dailies of a really bad TV commercial put together by someone with no sense of film structure. I'm told that this has something to do with two assassins fighting each other after some one is kidnapped, but I'm not certain since things just sort of happen for no real reason. I would like to think that this movie was a big joke on the movie going public but no one would want to spend what it cost to make this movie as a joke, especially when there was no hope of ever getting the money back in ten thousand life times. A void unless your eyes need to experience cinematic blunt force trauma applied to them.

Never mind the ballistics, here's the pathologist

[Euromutt · 2/10 · 14 September 2003]

When I say "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" was incredible, I don't mean that in a good way. All the main characters are current or former US federal agents, presumably to keep it interesting, but all the action takes places in Vancouver, BC, which, last time I looked, was not in the United States. The basic storyline was fairly straightforward (and rather hackneyed), but the motivations of the various characters were utterly incomprehensible. The film was somewhat on the short side, and I couldn't escape the feeling that the three scenes which might have tied together the loose ends inexplicably ended up on the cutting room floor. Banderas phoned in his performance (for God's sake, enunciate, man), and the musical score was just irritating. The only two things "Ballistic" had going for it were the presence of some rarely-seen hardware (fun for you firearms buffs) and some spectacular action sequences (though these were plagued by some annoying clichés, such as a protective vest preventing all injury to a character, and henchmen showing complete disregard for personal safety), and these were simply not enough to save this turkey. Avoid.

" "I had no idea what was going on. I just showed up, did what they told me and that was it",

[AlsExGal · 1/10 · 21 August 2020]

...says Lucy Liu about her role in this film. When one of your two leads is willing to say, on the record, that they haven't got a clue what the film in which they are starring is about or the motivation of their character is, you know you are in trouble.

Ultimately, this film's big sin is that it is so incoherent and completely lacking in motivation for the characters or backstory that it is boring. And cool slow motion flips through the air Matrix style and explosions - lots of them - are not going to change that. I have no idea what the background is between the two adversaries, no idea what makes the bad guy a villain, and no idea how they can spin this into a warm family drama, which they attempt to do at the end, I am just supposed to forget about all of those charred bodies left behind in Vancouver.

The director of this film goes by "Kaos". And somebody actually let him direct another film after this bomb. Granted, it was ten years later, but he got a second chance. I guess I could say to look at the video game of the same name for some guidance concerning the plot, but it is nothing like this film. Except for all of the loud noises, recommended as a substitute for Sominex.

Somebody owes me for the hour and a half of my life I wasted

[bltzburgh · 1/10 · 3 October 2003]

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. I literally left the movie going and went to my computer to surf the net. I would turn around to see what was happening when I heard an explosion, but otherwise just wanted it to finish. I rented this movie six months ago but never bothered to comment on it here and then they showed "The Making of Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever" on HBO last night and I was reminded how bad this movie was. I think the 3.5 stars is gets for a rating here is way too high.

absolutely the worst movie i have ever seen

[jarrid · 1/10 · 3 September 2003]

absolutely the worst movie i have ever seen. the acting was horrible, the plot, totally useless and I am really wondering how this movie made it to the screen, not to mention how the script ever got sold.

Worst film I will EVER see.

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 1/10 · 11 May 2004]

I can't understand why this film was made. It's so appalling and so bad that someone involved in the production must have noticed something. Everything in every area of filmmaking is wrong with Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Even the title as Banderas and Liu are not in competition with each other.

Here's the plot. Oh, wait a minute, I can't tell you what the plot is because it doesn't exist. It just a massive load of old cobblers. And what's even worse is that the nonexistent plot is full of holes. Make sense? No didn't think so. It's not even worth watching to see what I mean.

The dialogue is the truly worst ever. At least the bad dialogue in movies such as Dolemite is eternally quotable. Ray Park's 'acting' makes Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal on their worst day look like Laurence Olivier. The 'action' is so basic it feels like a made for video production, it lacks anything resembling sophistication and excitement.

I'm surprised Alan B. McElroy wrote this. He's done some good stuff (Wrong Turn, Spawn Animated Series) but this must have been something he wrote without much inspiration. Every writer comes up with a turkey but WHAT a turkey this is. Still, a bad script can sometimes make for a good movie if the delivery and direction has skill behind it. that ain't the case here.

Positive energy does not surround this film!

The DVD is in Dolby 5.1 and 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen.

good movie

[fjgmzsy · 10/10 · 26 August 2022]

Good movie. The FitnessGram™ Pacer Test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues. The 20 meter pacer test will begin in 30 seconds. Line up at the start. The running speed starts slowly, but gets faster each minute after you hear this signal. Beep A single lap should be completed each time you hear this sound. Ding Remember to run in a straight line, and run as long as possible. The second time you fail to complete a lap before the sound, your test is over. The test will begin on the word start. On your mark, get ready, start.

More bang for your buck

[vamp88 · 7/10 · 13 January 2004]

I was not impressed or disgusted enough to leave a comment on this film. So why am I typing now? I saw this was in the bottom 100 here on IMDB. It wasn't that bad. Actually I enjoyed it, but I was in the mood to not think and just watch stuff blow up (having a bad day). That's what I got. Lots and lots of explosions, and fun action, there were more explosions then dialouge. There is some plot here, but don't watch this for realism or story. It's a cartoon, a video game, just mindless action and entertainment, and thats why its worth seeing and doesn't belong on the bottom 100.

It doesn't come close to being a must see action flick (see the first 2 Lethal Weapons, Die Hard, Escape from New York or dozens of others), but it's not that bad.

Torture.........to watch

[gmdecesare · 1/10 · 13 January 2003]

I've always liked Banderas.

I don't anymore.

How on earth such an actor could even contemplate acting in such a ridiculous piece of tediousness is waaaaaaay beyond me.

There are absolutely no redeeming features - monosyllabic dialogue, wooden, stilted acting, John Woo-ish plagiarism - without the effect, mind-numbing musical score,NO sensible plot.

Please, for the love of God, do NOT see this film. Wish it on your worst enemies........no, not even !!

Here's a do-it-yourself B:E vs S

[jjs402 · 9 February 2003]

Start out with the Lucy Liu character. Wear a long coat and slacks everywhere you go. Look into a mirror and erase every expression you have. Speak about once every few hours.

Then you can do the Banderas character. Don't shave. Muss your hair. Put 15 jumbo olives in your mouth when you speak. Shuffle when you walk.

Oh yeah special effects. Let the gas on your stove run for about 10 seconds without lighting it. Then light it. Say "Boom". Repeat 100 times.

You can get a copy of the script really easy: Buy 10 comic books. Tear a couple of pages out of each one and staple the pieces together. Be sure that they don't fit too well together. They don't even have to be right side up.

If you do this, you won't need to rent this stinker.

This movie stole my soul and then hurt it too.

[theslowwizard · 1/10 · 30 September 2002]

I cannot figure out what encouraged me to go see this HORRIBLE movie. I should have been scared when the director was identified as KAOS, or in other words, the director doesn't want his name on this poo. WHY WAS THIS MOVIE RATED R????? There was no blood, no cursing, and no nudity. When a movie is as bad as this one, there should be at least be SOMETHING to make it worthwhile. Oh, Antonio, how far you have fallen! I remember when you were an unknown actor playing Tom Hank's lover in Philadelphia. Look at you now, you poor man. Well, actually, you're a very rich man. Anyway, Lucy!!! Lucy, what was that one movie you were in with the kicking and the explosions? Yes, that was a good one. I have no one to blame but myself for going to see this junky junk. Maybe I can blame my parents for raising me wrong. I am very glad that Florida movie prices are pretty low. That being said, here is my final statement: AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS!!!

Brainless. Useless. Painful.

[ecto-1 · 1/10 · 25 December 2002]

Brainless. Useless. Painful.

I would have gotten more fun from burning my money. This movie was unbearable. Or at least the first 70 minutes of it. That was how long it took until I decided to cut my losses and escape this torture. With this quality - we could all be screenwriters in Hollywood.

It stinks, it stinks, it stinks

[dszwerin · 1/10 · 22 September 2002]

Did I mention this movie stinks. My apologies if I am being arrogant to other reviewers, but if you found anything redeeming in this movie, you were not watching the same crapfest I saw. Lets see, what would be a good formula for an action movie. Incomprehensible and totally unmotivated Antonio Banderas + stone faced psycho killer Lucy Liu + non-stop explosions and gunfire + the most jumbled up, idiotic, and unresolved plot ever + a soundtrack that is all techno and actually frequently says things like "go go go go" during action scenes + some of the most ridiculous looking stunts ever caught on film = GARBAGE!!!!!

Oh and lets not forget the touching moment when Ecks (Banderas) is reunited with his wife just as the movie is having its most poignant moment. She was staring at a manatee in an aquarium. Then he shows up, they hug, we go to slow mo and some intelligence patronizing flashbacks and dialogue, and boom we understand the brilliance of the film. No, no no. This movie fails on every level on cinema. 1 is the only correct rating for this film, but this is America and we're entitled to opinions so if you gave it a 2, I guess thats ok too.

Simply one of the worst movie I have ever seen

[go_aheadmakemyday · 1/10 · 22 September 2002]

Yep,

I won't go lightely on this one.

Music score 0/10 Ok you all know now that there is no story in this. But it is very rare that I can say that even the music score annoyed me. Not that it wasn't good, the music didn't even went with the film. I had the impression of listening to a very bad video clip that only had explosions in it.

Dialogue 0/10 I think Lucy Lu had 3 lines in the movie. One of Banderas line was: "Don't worry, I found you...I'll find him" Wow, I was flabergasted. Unless you prefer..."What do we do now". I have nothing against one liner who doesn't love classics a la Clint Eastwood or Arnold great lines. But this...it's not one liners it's one line because they have nothing else to say.

Direction: 3/10 Ok fights were fine, but aside this I could "hear" the director say to the actors place yourslef there and say this. There was NO direction plain and simple. All you see is a bunch of clips glued together with static caracters almost reading their 5 words line.

Ho I forgot the camera, closer than this and I could have counted Antonio's nose hair. This is just too close man..up in my face.

All in all really it is one of the worst (I'm in my 40's) Even if you love Banderas and or Lucy please do yourself a favor don't go spoil your image of them. Both have made a big mistake accepting to play in this "thing". I don't even know how they got the money to shoot that thing.

The Revenge of Cardboard Villains

[firmanhadi · 1/10 · 6 January 2003]

In short, Luci Liu and Antonio Banderas must've been desperate to risk their future career to star in this wreck. Having those two stars on board, a lot of money must've been wasted on this rather forgettable turkey.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I love mindless action movies. But even a mindless action movie needs a lot more than just a catchy soundtrack and a bunch of dynamite to make it more entertaining than a 4-minute long Linkin Park video clip.

Even a marginally decent action flick is capable of making the bad guys so nasty that in the end we don't have any choice but root for the good guys. However, Kaos is not even capable of rehashing that tried-and-true formula. His movie suffers from poor character development. I don't care if the good guys win, since the villains are so laughably two dimensional. They're just empty cardboard props ready to be used whenever necessary. Just like those villainy machine gun-toting anonymous robocops resplendent in their bombproof uniform, who miraculously keep getting back on their feet, even after being bombed at, shot at and booby-trapped.

Toward the end, we are subjected to lengthy and rather pointless scene of empty freight trains being blown up to pieces. I didn't really see the purpose of this scene. However, now thinking about it, I think the reasons for that scene is just to wake up the audience for the final showdown between the good guy and the bad guy!

In the end, when the arch villain asks Bandera's character Sever, 'That's it? That's what you're capable of, despite all that training?' We actually want to ask Kaos that very same question.

Why didn't this destroy Lucy and Antonios career

[globalsven · 1/10 · 3 November 2005]

This was a terrible shamefully bad movie.

Sooo BADDDDD was the acting you just had to think all the actors (all of them) were just praying that this would go straight to video to be quietly forgotten. Well, we have not forgotten and we will not let this bad choice fade quietly into the night - hear us - this movie sucked. And we will remind you of it every time you make some stupid comment on how great an actor you are.

Don't even get me started on the video editing. Do not let children play with video editors - weird cuts and edits do not make you cool. Go back to your AV broom closet and stay there.

Direction - If only I had the directions to the directors home I would post it here so that we could all take up pitchforks and torches and pay him a visit.

Lots of guns, hurt, boom, action, villains, ..everything a movie needs......

[Rosettes · 5/10 · 20 June 2008]

...........it even has a thin story line, it even has a believable subplot, .............

.............but it's more of a movie for the boom and the brass flying than for anything else. Further, a movie that depends on a video game for recognition can lose potential audience members. I've never heard of this game "Ecks vs. Sever" before today. Picked up the movie more for its femme fatale classification.

Hence, those three factors, of boom and guns, of based on a video game, of good looking babes, means that this movie was probably made for the adolescent male.

Come to think of it, aside from the femme fatale, the injured lover, and the hooker on the street, I can't recall any other woman in this movie with a speaking part.

It's okay; the photography is wonderful and some of the angles are fantastic; it's 91 minutes of non stop action without really that much blood although for the amount of bullets flying at the hero and heroine, one would expect that at least a stray shot might hit.

But it is hardly memorable. Major supporting characters are there then disappear from the rest of the movie. It's an endless supply of professional Federal SWAT who don't stand a chance against the heros and as the movie moves on, turn out to be quite the amateurs. And while the villains probably succeed in getting the audience to hate them, the heros fail in getting the audience to love them. There is no sympathy for the innocent and they might as well just be a picture on the wall.

"Ballistic" contains more than enough action and plot reversals to keep its audiences enthralled

[zardoz-13 · 8/10 · 11 July 2007]

Thailand-born film director Wych Kaosayananda pulls out all stops in his first English- language actioneer "Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever," a fast-paced, slam-bang, high-octane, revenge-thriller that pits Hispanic heartthrob Antonio Banderas against Asian beauty Lucy Liu of "Charlie's Angels" fame. Kaosayananda, who made "Fah," the highest moneymaking movie of all time in Thailand, has since slashed his multi-syllabic moniker to Kaos. Not only does this talented Asian action helmer live up to his alias, but also "Ballistic" traces the trajectory of its title with a pyrotechnical frenzy. Our clench-jawed hero, our long-haired heroine, and a multitude of disposable but dastardly SWAT-style villains brandish a formidable arsenal of firepower, ranging from auto pistols to submachine-guns to rocket launchers, and unleash inexhaustible barrages of bullets in slow-motion for more than an hour with barely a word of dialogue. Moreover, when these one-dimensional archetypes aren't shooting up everything in sight, they resort to either kicking butt martial arts style a la "The Matrix" or demolishing dozens of cars, buses, SUVs, and railway freight cars. Although none of this nonsense remains remotely original, "Ballistic" delivers more than enough gunplay to compensate for its prefabricated, cookie-cutter plot about rival assassins.

Cast as a disillusioned but fashionably disheveled ex-G-Man named Jeremiah Ecks, Antonio Banderas wears a single expression throughout "Ballistic" as nondescript as his rain-sodden trench coat. According to the melodramatic, bullet-riddled screenplay by Alan McElroy, whose credits include "Spawn" and "Rapid Fire," Ecks quit the Bureau after his wife died in an explosion seven years ago. Ecks nurses a drink in a dimly-lit bar with rain dripping off his trench coat when his former Agency boss Julio Martin (Miguel Sandoval of "Mrs. Winterbourne") drops in and informs him that his dead wife is alive. Martin refuses to divulge the details until Ecks retrieves a microscopic assassination device from bad guy Robert Gant ("Payback's" Gregg Henry) which can be injected into a person's bloodstream and kill them when activated. Meanwhile, Gant faces troubles of his own when Sever (Lucy Liu) abducts his young son Michael (Aidan Drummond) and spirits him off to her Batcave of sorts where she hordes more hardware than most women have shoes. As an ex-DIA agent trained as an assassin because she was an orphan, Sever bears a grudge against Gant for killing her only child. When Gant isn't dodging Ecks and Sever, he contends with his grief-stricken wife Rayne (Talisa Soto of "License To Kill) who fears for her son's life.

"Ballistic" doesn't pretend to be anything more than a $70-million B-movie thriller. McElroy and Koas waste no more than a minute or two on expository dialogue before they load up this ode to the NRA and open fire. The taciturn cast spends more time ducking lead and spinning drop kicks than they do acting. One interesting shot shows a wounded villain plummeting backwards off a building to smash into a car beneath him. What makes the shot so fascinating is that we get to watch him as he falls without any cuts. As Gant's second-in-command, Ray Parks shows off his considerable martial arts expertise. Previously, Parks appeared in George Lucas's "The Phantom Menace" as Darth Maul and as Toad in "X-Men." Round for round, "Ballistic" contains more than enough violent action and plot reversals to keep its audiences enthralled during its lean, mean, 91 minute running time.

Blast from the past

[acedj · 6/10 · 7 February 2020]

I saw this when it was first released on home video, I do not remember much of the movie, but I know I saw it because I like both Banderas and Liu. I do remember enjoying the movie. Clearly though,since I have never bothered to watch it since, it was not an Earth shattering experience. I am sure that most of my enjoyment came from the fact that I was still in my 20s and a fast paced action flick was all I needed to be entertained.

Rated R for Retarded!

[Big O-7 · 1/10 · 6 January 2003]

This is one of the worst movies ever made. A previous reviewer says that this "could have been much better" ... I couldn't have agreed more! This movie would have been better had it never been made. Please stay away from this film.