Jamie
Ecks is a former FBI agent broken by the loss of his wife, Sever is a former assassin hell bent on getting revenge on the boss who betrayed her. Are they working with or against each other to save a kidnapped child? Find out in… Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
How?! If that introduction makes this film sound coherent then I’m sorry, I have misled you. For it is laughably incomprehensible. Almost to the point where Patrick and I disagreed over exactly what happened in the end. But… I’ll give it a shot. Gant is a dangerous weapons dealer who has used his child (or is he? Bum bum bum) to transport a dangerous nanobot assassin across international borders. However, once in the US a rogue assassin, Sever, abducts the child (nanobots and all) with some rad martial arts. Needing someone to help find the kid the FBI approach disgraced FBI agent Ecks. At first resistant, he eventually relents when told that his long presumed dead wife is actually alive and they will lead him to her in exchange for his help. Working against Gant’s goons, Ecks and Sever play a dangerous game of cat and mouse. In order to get Ecks out of the way he is framed for a crime and arrested. While being transported to jail, though, Sever frees him and leads him on a ho-hum but very lengthy motorcycle chase. This culminates in Sever revealing that she is actually a good guy (what a twist!) and that Ecks’ wife is actually Gant’s wife (what a double twist!) and the missing child is actually Ecks’ child (what a… wait, none of this makes sense anymore). They team up to lead Gant to a train yard where they set off giant explosions and kill a whole mess of people. In a final showdown Sever shoots Gant with a nanobot infused bullet leading to his death. Ecks then lives happily ever after with his wife and child who he’s never met. Cool. THE END.
Why?! By all accounts the motivations for Ecks and Sever are what got this film in trouble in the first place. According to the director the producers wanted the leads to have clearer motivations. They rewrote it so that Ecks didn’t just want to help find a kid but that he was doing it to find his not-actually-dead wife and that the kid turned to be his kid… which would be great if it actually made any sense. Patrick and I still aren’t exactly sure what was going on. Was she Gant’s wife, but Ecks’ lover? Was she actually Ecks’ wife and then Gant put together a super elaborate scheme so that he could get with Ecks’ wife and become an international criminal? All I know is that it sure does seem extra dumb.
What?! We do have a nice MacGuffin in this guy with Softkill, the assassin nanobot. Complete with absurd computer graphics showing how said nanobot can totes inject you with dangerous chemicals, Softkill is something that every bad guy can’t wait to get his hands on.
Who?! Little did people know that this film actually completed a mononymous director tril-o-geez for BMT. That’s because we previously watched This Means War directed by McG and Catwoman directed by Pitof. This of course was directed by Kaos. Sweet trilogy bro. Next up Into the Sun directed by mink.
Where?! At first I thought for sure this was one of those classic films set in American City for American Action, but filmed in Canada. However, it wasn’t long before it was clear that this was actually set in Vancouver… which really throws everything for a loop. So the DIA director (a component of the DoD) just lives in Vancouver full time? And several different American law enforcement agencies just waltz into Canada and take over an investigation? Cool. B+.
When?! I cannot recall seeing a date thrown around anywhere, but it might have been because my brain died halfway through watching this film. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. F.
Usually when the reviews for a film say that a film is nearly incomprehensible what they actually mean is that they didn’t feel like paying attention because the film was bad, but in reality if you pay attention the film is coherent enough. Not Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. It’s legit hard to follow. And for that it must be commended. At the same time its incompetence gets in the way of truly enjoying the film as the worst reviewed of all time. It’s a great example of a truly bad film that I wouldn’t love to watch again. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Oooo what’s this, the first cut of that new sweet wife-fu film we commissioned from that up and coming director Kaos. What a sweet name, Kaooooos. The next John Woo I was told. Let’s just pop this guy in … oh, my God. May the lord have mercy on my soul. Let’s get into it!
The Good – There are moments in this film which look good. A specific shot in the rain is a little out of date, but not much different than something you’d see in Max Payne or Sin City. And a shot of a police officer falling off a building, specifically how they did it, is pretty impressive I think, and I think looks good. Like … the good parts make you kind of believe Kaos’ story that the movie was doomed by the production issues, because he filmed at least a few shots amazingly well I think.
P’s View on the Preview – This is the worst film ever reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes. So obviously exploring why that is and the interesting notability there was the number one priority. I also had seen the film once before over ten years ago. The only things I remembered was there is a crazy bus crashing scene, and the movie was so confusing that at one single point the storyline abruptly made no sense. To the point where I was confused as to why it was considered so bad and then all of a sudden I was “ah … there it is”.
The Bad – For the first half of the film it is just kind of confusing (more silly than anything), but then they try and pull Ecks’ wife into the mix and woooooof. It dials the confusion to eleven. Like … was he married to her? If so why did she subsequently get into Gant’s car? What happened to the other lady at lunch? It is fairly obvious that the initial intention was to not make Talisa Soto Ecks’ long dead wife (at least I think so), but they kind of reshot things to add the storyline in to makes things more personal … uh, that’ll be a mistake dawg. Besides that the action looks corny and/or shitty more often than not, the stunts look legit dangerous which makes me sad, and the soundtrack is bonkers. So really it is kind of top to bottom an impressive mess. Also shout out to Antonio Banderas’ character whitesplaining the One Child Policy to an Asian actor in the middle of the film.
Get Yo Rant On – It is kind of sad that it is likely that nothing will ever beat this film from a Rotten Tomatoes perspective. Nothing. There is just no way a film gets 100 reviews and all of them are bad. There was a sweet spot in the early 2000s where there were enough online reviewers for a kind of minor release like this to get 100 reviews, but these days someone out there would give it an ironic “so bad I vomited all over myself in the theater and missed the second half of the movie. Three out of four stars, good for what it is” for anything that a production company would even bother releasing. Something like this probably has a 50-50 shot of being shelved no matter the budget at this point just because of the crowded release schedule. What a time to be alive.
The BMT – So is this the worst movie ever? I wouldn’t personally go that far. It actually kind of reminds me of Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li. And legit, if you recast the film with Chris Klein it would have been a legend and probably made the Hall of Fame. As it stands it probably is the most confusing film I’ve ever watched, and not in the way critics often use the term, as a synonym of messy, I mean like I still don’t know the interpersonal relationships described in the film. That’s just one piece of making a film legendary, and instead I think this will have to settle for merely being a quintessential example of that one particular movie trait.
StreetCreditReport.com – Oh yeah. On a worst-of list here, here, and here. Funny, for a film that was a little too forgettable to get noticed by the Razzies it sure did get noticed by the critics. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. I revise any previous statements and I think that it didn’t get any nominations because despite being on the early ballot people just hadn’t seen it and couldn’t be bothered to vote. Although, how they could resist voting for a man named Kaos would be beyond me.
No homework, unless you count not playing the Nintendo DS game of the same name … you don’t? Excellent, then cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 