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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 43051
Released: December 24, 2002 |
| Our Price: $2.51 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This is a story of two spies, who are lifelong adversaries, engaged in a cat-and-mouse hunt. Jonathan Ecks (Banderas) is an FBI agent hunting the other, Sever (Liu) a rogue NSA agent. What they learn, however, while trying to kill each other... is that they might be on the same side, and faced with a threat greater to each other than themselves.
Description of Ballistic - Ecks vs. Sever:
If you have a hearty appetite for fiery explosions, heavy ordnance, and nonsensical mayhem, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is just for you. This mindless action flick is so wrong-headed that even its ungainly title is inaccurate: as expert assassins on the fringes of government intelligence, FBI agent Ecks (Antonio Banderas) and Defense Intelligence agent Sever (Lucy Liu) aren't battling each other at all. Instead, he's trying to find his missing ex-wife (the stunning but expressionless Talisa Soto) and young son, while she's pursuing an agency turncoat (Gregg Henry) who's stolen the ultimate micro-technology for clandestine killing. United against a common enemy, Ecks and Sever lay waste to half of Vancouver (the film's budget-conscious location), and it all makes as much sense as meatballs on a vegetarian menu. Banderas and Liu look fabulous as corpses pile up around them, but Thai action director Kaos (a.k.a. Wych Kaosayananda) must have confused his nickname with the incomprehensible plot of his movie. --Jeff Shannon
Ballistic - Ecks vs. Sever Reviews:
Orgami cranes 
2008-08-23 - You have the good guys turning to the bad guys...
A kidnapping by a mysterious female martial arts expert
turns into a lost and found story,
where the bad guy gets stuck with his own knife.
The dialog is minimal; a lot of chase scenes, explosions
and fight scenes. The only thing it misses is slice and
dice with swords? Lucy Liu's moves seem stiff and stylized;
a real martial arts expert would make short work of her?
Antonio Banderas is pulling a romantic lead in a minimalist fashion.
The best actor in the movie may be the kid who is Ecks' son.
Lame! 
2008-08-15 - This is outstandingly bad! I've given it two stars for a couple of decent action sequences, but largely it's poor beyond belief. Avoid.
Nothing more than mindless action entiertainment
2008-03-25 - Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is nothing more than a mindless action flick. The plot is almost non existent, there's a lot of explosions and some pretty good fight scenes. Banderas and Liu seem bored in their roles and director Kaos seems to have a hard on for John Woo because he bites Woo's style through out the movie. Still the fight scene between Ray Park and Lucy Liu was good and that's the only thing that saves this film for me
A guilty pleasure if there ever was one
2007-01-16 - Ok, so this movie isn't a masterpiece. But I find it to be an entertaining guilty pleasure, one of those movies that one would never admit to anyone else that they own. It has gotten blasted everywhere by professional and non-professional critics alike, and probably bombed at the box office (I wouldn't doubt this for a second). But it does offer some fairly thrilling explosions, shootouts, hand-to-hand combat and the sort. No better or worse than any other clichéd action flick of this genre. The plot leaves little to be desired, sure, but one usually doesn't watch a movie like this for the plot anyway. And of course, there's the gorgeous Lucy Liu. She's quite easy on the eyes here, let me tell you.
I'd recommend this to die-hard Lucy Liu fans, die-hard Antonio Banderas fans, or fans of the totally brainless action flick genre. Not much else to offer other moviegoers I'm afraid. Definitely rent first before buying, and only buy if you can find it cheap.
Ballistic - we've been here before
2006-10-14 - 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.
