Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002)

Hey, all the movies I've ever reviewed on this site are from 2002. Weird eh? I'll do something different next.

Ballistics: Ecks vs Sever, starring Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu, was a 2002 box office failure. One reason for this was probably the name. It's hard to imagine a worse name than Ballistics: Ecks vs Sever. Many people, myself included, have trouble thinking of names for characters when writing a story. The fact that this title made it past producers, focus groups, the final draft of the script, shooting, and when it was time to send out posters tells you that there's something very wrong with the Hollywood system.

BEVS starts with some pretty standard opening titles, stock helicopter shots of a city. The director really phoned this one in. By the way, the director's name is KAOS. Seriously. I can't even imagine the amount of pussy a guy with that name pulls in.

You may have the rotten tomatoes worst reviewed movie of all time under your belt, but at least your name is Kaos. That's awesome, bro. Give yourself a pat on the back.

After these useless city shots we go to a woman driving a car with her son in the back. Some guy stops her, and he mentions some kind of child custody thing, like “The boy's father wants to see him,” and she's all like “But he just got back,” and then the guy's all like “Too bad so sad, his dad wants to see him bad.” And he grabs the kid out of the back and puts him in another car. Okay.

So the kid's riding in another car now and then, exactly 4 minutes into the movie, INCLUDING the opening titles, BUH BAM! A car next to them explodes. There's a shot of a huge truck T-boning a parked car, although I'm not sure exactly why. Everybody in the car with the kid gets out, they all have guns of various sizes. One guy's trying to shield the kid with his body.

In comes Lucy Liu, hooded badass. She kicks the shit out of everybody with her asian fighting skills. The entire fight, from the moment of the first explosion, lasts about two minutes. She kicks the last guy in the face and takes the kid with her.

Nice raincoat, O-Ren Ishii.

CUT TO! Antonio Bandaras in the role of “Ecks,” sitting at a bar drinking like a fish, looking miserable.. He's got some pretty bad stubble and long greasy hair. Some FBI guys are behind him. “Hello Ecks, we're the FBI and we're taking you in.” But Ecks doesn't want to go, he just likes drinking I guess. One of the FBI guys puts his hand on Ecks' shoulder- BIG MISTAKE!

Mariachi style ass-kicking, T-minus one second...

So he beats the crap out of the two FBI agents, and some other FBI guy whose name I forget shows up. Let's call him 'Bobo.' Bobo says, “Hello Ecks, we need to talk.” Ecks responds “The answer [to whatever you're about to ask me] is no.” Then Bobo drops a bomb- Ecks dead wife, the reason, we can only assume, that Ecks is so depressed and alcoholic, is actually still live! Buhwhuuuuuuuuh? But Bobo wants Ecks to do something for him first. “Where is my wife?” “When the job is done I'll tell you what I know.” Ecks says no, I guess he doesn't believe him or something. Cut to: Ecks walking in slow motion through the rain, intercut with the same repeated shot of a car exploding. I guess that's how he thinks his wife died, in an exploding car.

Ecks changes his mind (maybe the alcohol wore off) and goes back to talk to Bobo who's still at the same bar. “You'll be joining an FBI transnational special task force,” says Bobo, which is odd, because for the rest of the movie Ecks works with only one guy max, and everything takes place in America (I think). There's no special task force and no trips to other countries. It's a strange line. Anyway.

MEANWHILE! Lucy Liu is keeping the kid from the first scene in a cage.

This kid shows absolutely no emotion through the entire movie. Here he is locked in a cage and he's reading a book or something. Kids are dumb.

Okay, enough of that! Let's get back to Ecks. He's being briefed on whatever it is they want him to do. It's pretty confusing and it's pretty hard to care at all about the plot in this movie but from what I gather somebody had invented a tiny little robot assassin that goes into your veins and kills you from within, but it was stolen by the kidnapped kid's dad, who the FBI likes to call “The Prince of Darkness.” What do they call Satan, then?

They watch some surveillance cam footage of Lucy Liu beating the shit out of people. Ecks explains that she must have been one of the many rejected Chinese baby girls adopted by the United States Government and trained to be an assassin. Bobo says “We need you to find her.” “Of course you do,” Ecks smugly replies.

So now Ecks and his new partner are sitting in a cop car listening to the police radio. Ecks' partner who is I guess a pretty new FBI recruit, notices Ecks looking at a picture of his family he has taped to the dashboard. The following cheesy dialogue is spoken:

Partner: It's my wife and daughter. (takes other photograph of daughter from wallet, displays) Her name's Mali!
Ecks: Do you love her?
Partner: (Shocked, offended, confused) Of course!
Ecks: Then get out of this business.

So Lucy Liu has been spotted at some mall or something by the police, who for some reason don't tell Ecks/ Ecks' partner. A guy walks right up behind her and puts a gun up to her back, and says something to the effect of “OH SHIT! We got you this time!” Of course, Lucy Liu pulls some Kung-fu shit and grabs the gun from him.

BAM PUNCH PUNCH BAM!

Lucy Liu now has a different gun, not sure where she got it, which she shoots in the air, and all the innocent bystanders hit the deck. Lucy Liu has a huge, long fight with what feels like the entire United States Army.

Over the police radio, Ecks hears “Attention all Units. Shots fired. Suspect is female. Vancouver Library” and hilariously deducts that it's the person he's supposed to find. Lucky there wasn't some crazy lady with a gun anywhere else that day, that would have been embarrassing for everyone. So they peel off and head for the library. Also, I'm just now realizing that maybe the 'Couv is what they meant by transnational. Huh. Canada eh? Does that really count?

So meanwhile, there's a big stupid fight with Lucy Liu and a whole bunch of guys in army uniforms. There's actually one absolutely spectacular shot of a guy falling off a building and landing on a car which is crushed, the camera follows him smoothly and at a very steady distance all the way down. It's actually incredible and by far the most impressive part of the movie.

Now what's a pretty young shot like you doing in a movie like this?

To end the fight, Lucy takes out about six fully armed guards with a pair of little stick things and then hops up onto their military assault vehicle, which has a huge gun on the back, and proceeds to kill the shit out of everybody.

So you heard there was a lady with a gun at the library, and you brought a military assault vehicle. Nice move there buddy.

After that, she just walks away.

So in the aftermath of this massacre, Bobo's talking to this British guy who works for kidnapped kid's dad. It's a heated argument and I forget what it's about, but it just lets you know that kidnapped kid's dad is a bad guy, if you hadn't figured that out when people started calling him “The Prince of Darkness.” Ecks is there, late to the fight (typical) but he's convinced that she's going to come back for more carnage. He tells Bobo to call off the police who are investigating the crime scene. “But calling off these people at this point would be career suicide!” complains Bobo. “Not quite,” says Ecks. And, BAMMO! Bobo gets shot in the chest. His dieing words to Ecks are “She knows... she knows where your wife is!” while pointing at the woman who just murdered him. Oh, Bobo! You're so selfless.

Ecks chases after her and runs down an alleyway looking for her. “Where is she!” he yells. Suddenly, a yellow car crashes through a wall. Guess who it is? I'll tell you! It's Lucy!

“Yes, I'd like my custom licence plate to say 'BAD' on it, because I'm so BAD.” “Very good ma'am. Anything else beside 'BAD'?” “Yeah, just put three random numbers after, I don't care.”

I have no idea how to explain the action sequence that followsso instead I think I'll just give you a flash gif I made. Enjoy!

BEVS: The Animated Series

So after that shit show, Ecks finds Lucy, again, and they have a little talk. He's got the drop on her with a gun, so she says “You kill me, you kill Gant's [Prince of Darkness] son!” “I don't work for Gant. I just want my wife.” Whoa there, Harrison Ford! She doesn't answer him, they have a hilariously awful fight.

Let me break this down: He had a gun, she grabbed his gun hand and his face, then he somehow threw the gun into his free hand.

Long story short, she gets away. CUT TO! The living room of Ecks' partner, his daughter Mali sitting in a chair across from Ecks. She looks about ten years younger than she did in the picture the guy showed Ecks earlier, which is a little weird.

Ecks asks his new friend for a laptop, and he goes onto the database that everybody has access to in these movies and SOMEHOW, without even knowing her name, comes up with the full profile of Lucy Liu's character, who, it turns out, is named “Sever.”

CROSS CUT WITH! Lucy Liu, at HER computer in her secret lair with all the cages. She's looking up Ecks on her computer! She's overriding passwords and everything! She does some research and reads up on what happened to his wife. Anyway, all this parallel action is getting spliced together. It would be cool if these magical databases weren't a dumb Hollywood cliche.

After reading up on Ecks' life, she does some X-Rays of the kid she has locked up, and underneath a bandage he has on his arm is one of the assassin nanobots!

What operating system is that?

Meanwhile, some guys burst in and arrest Ecks, I couldn't tell you why though. Something about murdering some Mexican guy. Maybe something he did while he was still an unemployed drunk.

Sever (Lucy Liu) calls Gant (The Prince of Darkness). More cheesy dialogue.

Gant: Where's my son, Sever?
Sever: Maybe the same place MY son is.
Gant: You can't blame me for what happened. You broke profile.
Sever: Is that what you call having a child? CLICK! (She hangs up, she doesn't just say "CLICK")

Gant calls the police and gives them the order to kill Ecks. So now Ecks is riding in an armoured bus, handcuffed to his seat. He;s got a paperclip though, and he's breaking his cuffs. He looks ahead, at a bridge over the highway they're driving on. It's Sever, and she's pointing a huge gun at the bus! He breaks his handcuffs and grabs a huge gun of his own which is hanging on the wall of the bus for some reason. Sever shoots the bus, there's a stupid explosion, the bus flips. Now, the bus is sideways on the highway, scraping along the road at great speeds. Ecks climbs out a window and shoots at Sever from the side of the bus, which is now the top of the bus.

Remember, Ecks was about to be executed, so however this ends for him, it's going to be better than that at least.

Ecks jumps off the bus and steals a motorcycle. Sever has a motorcycle of her own. There's a motorcycle chase scene that ends up in a junkyard. A few thousand exploding cars later, everyone is dead except Sever and Ecks. Sever has the opportunity to kill Sever, but she doesn't. Instead the gives him an address on a little slip of paper: 35 Lionsburg. “You want your wife? You'll find her with Gant.” Why is she all of sudden helping him when literally second ago she was trying to blow him up? She's just crazy like that.

Meanwhile, at a Beluga aquarium, Ecks' not-actually-dead-wife is looking at some belugas. Ecks shows up. They reconcile and between the two of them piece together the completely retarded diabolical plot that kept them apart.

The lighting in this scene is terrible. It would have been cooler with silhouettes.

Apparently, Gant, the Prince of Darkness, blew up a car that Ecks thought his wife was in, and blew up a car that Ecks' wife thought Ecks was in. They both thought the other had died. Ecks' wife ended up marrying Gant. This doesn't make sense to me. Ecks has already mentioned there was a funeral for his wife, and I assume there was also a funeral for him. Wouldn't they have had some of the same friends at both funerals? Does everybody in the world know about this evil plot but them? And what bout his wife getting married? Wouldn't she have had to prove she wasn't still married to Ecks, who the legal system would have found out was still alive because he was? They were both alive and living in the same town, they never ran into each other? There's a lot of holes in this story.

Anyway, then Ecks' wife says that she still loves him and blah blah blah, but guess what? Turns out the son is actually Ecks'! Holy jumpin'!

Anyway, they leave the aquarium and Sever just shows up in her car and they both get in. They go back to Sever's secret lair, where Sever lets Ecks' son out of his cage.

“Hey son, how you been doin?” “Uh, I just got out of being locked in a cage for a week.” “That's cool. I escaped from an exploding bus.”

Right after his new found son is let out of his cage, Ecks decides to lock him right back in, this time with Ecks' wife. “You'll be safer in here.” What? All right.

Sever has a huge collection of guns. She remarks, “Some women collect shoes.” Heh heh, good one.

UH-OH, BAD GUYS! Sever talks to Gant for bit, then things blow up. I'm not getting. In this scene, Kaos has artfully decided to go with a distinct theme: big dumb asplosions. Explosions are repeated multiple times from three or four camera angles. Things are getting blown left and right, and not in the good way either. It's like this was the last scene they filmed, and they realized how many explosives they still had, so they just decided “Fuck it! Let's blow everything up.”

I think Ecks is a pretty cool guy, eh walks away from explosions and doesn't afraid of anything.

So everybody dies except for Ecks, Sever, and Gant, and of course Ecks' wife and son. All five meet up in Sever's lair, and Ecks, Holmeslike, explains to everyone what Gant's evil plan was: He stole the robot assassin and injected it into his son (actually Ecks' son) to smuggle it across the border. Gant pulls out a stupid ray gun looking thing and presses it to his son's (actually Ecks' son's) arm, then exclaims “It's not here! Where is it?”

Props guy: Oh man, I forgot to get that ray gun ready for today! Okay uhhh, how about I just put a sticker on a glue gun, nobody will ever know.

Lucy Liu shoots Gant him with another ray gun thing. It doesn't seem to hurt him. Gee, I wonder what she shot him with?
Gant: All that training. Is that the best you can do?
Sever: No. THIS is. (presses button on secret remote)

We dolly in House MD style to Gant's innards, where the assassin robot is! It uses its pinchy claws to grab something that looks important ad rip it apart. Gant dies.
CUT TO: Dock. Ecks and Sever, friends forever, stand there looking at the sea.

Ecks: Thank you.
Sever: Take care of your wife and kids.
Ecks: I will.

He looks over at Sever- but she's gone! He looks around, confused. What's this, though? Looks like she's left behind a little origami swan.

Big deal. I can make one that flaps its wings when you pull its tail.

THE END!

Numbers out of ten:

Acting: 5
Fault whoever you want for the poor performances here, the director, the actors, whoever. The fact remains that Ecks and Sever are about as unbelievable as El Mariachi and O-Ren Ishii were awesome.
Directing: 1
Absolutely terrible. I'll give Kaos one mark for that awesome shot of the guy falling off a huge tower onto a car.
Dialogue: 1
I can't believe that this script was picked up to be made into a movie. The dialogue is so terrible it's a joke.
Plot: 1
Boring, complicated, full of holes, and pretty stupid overall. Not a good plot.
Entertainment: 10
So bad, it's good. I haven't laughed this hard at a movie in a while. The sequence at the end with all the explosions was probably the worst/ funniest.

TOTAL: 32%