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Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever Review By Shawn McKenzie 09/24/2002 Is there such a thing as too many explosions? Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever proves that there is.
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is the story of the battle of two former FBI agents. The first one is Jeremiah Ecks (Antonio Banderas), an agent who quit the FBI because he felt guilty that his wife blew up in a car. The other one is an agent known only by the codename Sever (Lucy Liu.) She is a lethal weapon who can’t be contained by even a whole team of agents. Ecks’ former superior, Julio Martin (Miguel Sandoval) armed with partial news that Ecks’ wife may still be actually alive, lures Ecks back to the FBI. He won’t tell Ecks everything, because he knows that Ecks won’t come back otherwise. He wants Ecks to investigate a bad guy named Robert Gant (Gregg Henry) who has been trying to smuggle in a micro-device that, when injected, can make the victim look like he is having a heart attack (which they would be having, of course.) Gant is married to Rayne (Talisa Soto), who doesn’t like her husband very much because of his shady dealings. Their son, Michael (Aidan Drummond), is kidnapped one day (by Sever), and they desperately want him back, but for different reasons. Rayne wants him back because she is his mother and Robert wants him back for other reasons (that I won’t say because it would give away the plot.) Sever has kidnapped Michael because she has a personal issue with Robert. At first Ecks thinks Sever is an enemy, but soon learns that the enemy is Robert, so he teams up with Sever to battle Robert and his associate A.J. Ross (Ray Park.)
This movie is what a soap opera would look like if it had a big budget, big stars, and lots of explosions. It has a plot that really doesn’t make sense and too much melodrama. I don’t want to give away the plot, but when you watch it, you might question the actions of some of the characters, such as what Rayne ever saw in Robert. As I stated before, there were way too many explosions. They seem to come out of nowhere at times. There were parts where I think even some of Robert’s henchmen were thinking that the explosions were excessive. You shouldn’t be able to create a drinking game based on the explosions.
There were some good parts. The opening scene where Sever takes on a whole team of agents was cool. Also the fight near the end between Sever and Ross will remind you of the battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (for all of you reading this who isn’t a fellow geek, Park played Darth Maul in that movie.)
This one isn’t worth seeing in the theater. Maybe you could rent it or catch it on premium cable, but it will only be for the few cool fight scenes in the movie and not for the plot, or even all the action. Of course if you were planning on taking up that explosion drinking game, the DVD might come in handy!
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