A Year of Garbage Movies #78, “Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever” (2002)

Brandon Dockery
Nov 2 · 3 min read

I know I’m in for quality when both of the lead characters’ names look like typos.

I was extremely worried about this one, because while it’s only #78 on IMDB’s list, it is currently the worst-rated movie in the history of Rotten Tomatoes, having the most reviews for a movie with a 0% rating.

Interestingly enough, as I Wikipedia-d further, I discovered that this movie spawned a video game, which they released the year before the movie to great reviews on the Game Boy Advance. After the movie released, they released another game that followed the plot of the movie. So the movie is kind of the sequel to the game, inspired by the movie, which in turn generated another game which is also a sequel to the first. Still with me? Good.

Anyway, onto the movie itself.

I think IMDB’s is probably more accurate. This movie is basically an hour of Lucy Liu (Sever) winning fights due to the cartoonish incompetence of the DIA (or maybe FBI, who can keep up).

They try to capture her in a crowded food court. Snipers are in position, they’ve got a guy on foot to bring her in, and a huge perimeter with dozens if not hundreds of agents and officers on sight. They have an assault vehicle. Everyone has fully automatic weapons.

They send in one guy to actually pick her up, so when she inevitably beats him up and takes his gun there is nobody on the ground to stop her. Panic ensues, and she somehow manages to dodge tens of thousands of rounds of ammo over the next ten minutes. Many agents don’t even fire, they just kind of stand there as she guns them down.

The shooting range at the DIA training facility

Later Antonio Banderas (Ecks) has her at gunpoint with a shotgun (why this unnerves her when she took out 6 agents with body armor and guns using a couple of batons is unclear). She has an assault rifle at the ready but drops it anyway. Another agent walks in and this brief distraction is enough for her to get away (shooting this dude in the process). Moments later, Ecks has her covered again, then for no obvious reason throws the shotgun away and tries to draw his pistol, giving her ample time to kick the shit out of him.

This is the movie equivalent of trying to watch someone else type. It’s just an hour and a half of pure frustration as everyone does everything wrong.

The exposition doesn’t make much sense either, really. The DIA director set off some car bombs to convince both Banderas and his wife that the other died. It’s not like Ecks faked his death and changed his name, he hops up and starts screaming for his presumably dead wife. Did they hold a funeral for him without him knowing or something? Did neither of them ever actually check?! They knew people in common! The bad guy, who was under a different name at the time, literally becomes DIA director and nobody notices?!

It’s possible that I’m just confused but honestly I don’t care. The story is just as all-over the place as the editing and I’m glad it’s over.

Pros:

  • Lucy Liu somehow maintains a perfect appearance regardless of how many people she’s shot or how high of a building she’s jumped off of.
  • Madonna beat out Lucy Liu for Worst Actress at the 2002 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, winning the award for her performance in “Swept Away”. I feel validated.
  • The Imperial Storm Troopers probably feel better about themselves, now that they’re no longer the least accurate armed force in the universe.

Cons:

  • The “twist” was telegraphed from the beginning
  • I’m pretty sure this movie is the reason ammo became super expensive back in the early 2000s
  • If I’d known how strict Rotten Tomatoes was I would have saved myself a lot of pain and used their list instead.
    Brandon Dockery

    Written by

    I watch movies and complain about them

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