Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever – A Review

I’m going to venture into territory I don’t much explore: the movie review.

Tonight’s victim: “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever”
Let me just say that this is a very good bad movie. What do I mean? I mean, as far as bad movies go, this one does a great job of being a bad movie. It’s so bad, you have to like it, just for the facts that A) someone had the audacity to film it and B) some studio head was coked out of his mind enough to buy it. Kinda like “Center Stage”…man, did that movie try hard!

Let’s see..what’s this movie about? Well, Antonio Banderas is a former special agent, reinstated to bring in Lucy Liu, who’s believed to be some kind of crazy killer. After a whole bunch of plot twists, it becomes “Ecks Teams Up With Sever”, without the predictable romantic subtext. In fact, very little chemistry develops between the two due to Lucy’s 20-line limit in the movie. I swear, if she got standard union rate, Lucy Liu only made about $5,000 from this movie.

Best line of the movie: “Some women buy shoes…” Trust me, it makes sense if you hate your life enough to watch this movie.

Best part of the movie: Sever kills Darth Maul. I don’t care what Lucy’s character’s name is, she’s always “the bitch from Ally McBeal”. Talk about typecast. Anyway, during this scene, all I could think was, “I’ll bet Callista Flockhart awkwardly walks around the corner any minute!”

Asian-American director, Kaos, does a great job downplaying the obvious minority stereotypes, yet this time PC=crappy movie. Sorry, Kaos.

Now, don’t get me wrong. As much as I’m bashing this thing, understand that I still enjoyed it. In fact, I want a sequel! Call me a glutton for punishment. I think they could milk a trilogy out of this! Then again, I’m the guy who’s still waiting for a sequel to “Super Mario Bros”! I mean, c’mon, the friggin’ Princess needed their help again!

Speaking of bad movies, why do studios load DVDs with useless special features? My biggest gripe is when they list “interactive menu” as a special feature. I mean, isn’t that a pre-req of the DVD format? And how “interactive” can it get? They might as well just say “responds to remote control button press”. This little gem of a movie had the balls to include a “making of” featurette. Nothing quite like watching the creation of a bad movie, following said bad movie. Of course, everyone’s thinking, “I wonder what the hell that guy was thinking?” Well, here it is. Now you know, and everyone’s laughing ’cause they all “had such fun filming this movie”. I’d have fun too if I was being paid millions for MY shit.

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