So much average

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

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.

Big. Loud. Dumb. Hollow. Notorious train wreck and box office failure. Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever is all of these things, and yet somehow I still got a kick out of it, albeit in the shallow end of the speedometer. I know what you're thinking.. "wow, another turd that Nate is polishing up with multiple syllable words to make it seem like less of a piece of crap." Well, you're not wrong. I fully concede that this is one huge glorious, post Mexican food pile of poop, but there's something about it that pulls me in every time it shows up on SyFy or some such channel. Maybe it's the fact that it's one of those rare films that not only is shot in my hometown of Vancouver, but actually set here too. Mostly Vancity just doubles for Chicago, New York or any other Yankee metropolis, but director Kaos (yes that's his name) chose to tell the story right here in my little burg. Speaking of story, or lack thereof, it's one big shredded mess of a plot involving Ecks (Antonio Banderas) and Sever (Lucy Liu) two former federal agents out to get each other, eventually working together and then both becoming chumps in some ludicrous government conspiracy involving arch villain Gant (Gregg Henry, hammy as ever). It makes little to no sense, it's so convoluted it prompts the viewer to throw their hands up in exhausted defeat and give up hope on any cohesion, instead letting a wave of schitty early 2000's special effects and over elaborate, unwarranted stunt work to wash over them like a tidal wave of rejected video game cutscenes. And poor Vancouver, looking like a ghost town, just gets blown to smithereens by these trigger happy, matrix wardrobed, scowling lunatics. I'd probably stay off the streets too if Lucy Liu massacring hordes of VPD officers was in the forecast, or on second thought maybe not, that sounds kind of hot. I'm rambling, but any review of this film has the right to get sidetracked and ramble as much as this pile of wanton sound and fury does for the entirety of its scant runtime. It's disastrous to be sure, but does that make me pick up the remote and switch over to something else when it's on? Not really. Plus, despite the actual film, this has to have one of the coolest looking DVD cover posters ever designed. I mean, look at it.

I'm not entirely how to say this while staying civil, but don't waste your time and the two dollars you'll spend getting ahold of this utter piece of bat feces. Let's face it. A director named 'Kaos' is bound to make bad movies, if only because the man makes no sense. Filled with lines which make no sense, actions scenes which make you feel like you're watching 18-20 old women beat each other with their purses and vacuum cleaners in slow motion, you'll spend more time going to the bathroom, getting snacks, and doing other things than actually watching this, checking back every 20 minutes to see if the plot actually progresses (which, I'm sad to say, doesn't). It cost me two dollars and and hour of my life. Antonio Benderez, I want that money and time back. Now.

... It's no different to films like "Commando" in the '80's - pure action cheese!!!! Imagine "Assassins", with Lucy Liu instead of Sly; and instead of a BAD script, this time not even an attempt at one, and you're almost there.I don't really know what else to say as it has to be at least three years since I watched this movie, and its detractors have a point when they say nothing about it really sticks in the memory except pyrotechnics and good looking, inexpressive stars. The audience is only given bare bones, but to be fair, I remember being impressed with the way the action sequences were put together. They're adrenalin-inducing, and in such a giddy rush of a mood it becomes simple to overlook any logical gaps or lack of characterisation. It's easy to knock such macho enterprises. It doesn't do very much, but even with only mayhem as its stock-in-trade, it delivers. That has to be better than any so-called action films where there isn't even any hint of spectacle, at all.