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Ballistic:
Ecks vs. Sever
Critics
live for credits like this: "Directed by Kaos." Thai director
Wych Kaosayananda makes his American debut with Ballistic:
Ecks vs. Sever, and proves that he has little control.
Okay. Enough cutesy critic stuff. What you want to know is:
Do things blow up good?
Despite
the presence of enough gasoline to run an Arco for a year,
no. Things blow up. They blow up here, there and everywhere.
And not a single explosion makes any dramatic impact, though
occasionally one forms a yellow fiery backdrop for characters
to walk in slow motion. Even then it's a mistake, not just
for the cliché, but because it dims the smolder that is Antonio
Banderas' sole expression in this film.
Since
Banderas isn't much of a hand to hand fighter, he gets to
carry a rifle around a lot. We know from Desperado
and the upcoming Once Upon A Time In Mexico that he
does this well. And yet, Kaos manages to somehow consistently
blow the cool of Banderas.
The other
person who stands surprisingly well with a gun is Lucy Liu,
as the stone cold killer Sever. It's a good thing, too, because
when all else fails Kaos in an action sequence, he resorts
to having her stand stock still with a machine gun/grenade
launcher and slowly, slowly take aim.
Yes,
rather than let us get caught up in the kinetic action, Kaos
takes everything slowly. Even a motorcycle chase occurs at
a sane and sensible thirty miles per hour. When Banderas wipes
out on his cycle, Liu politely waits for him to regain control
before she continues fleeing. Say what you will about Ecks
and Sever; they're terribly courteous enemies.
Except
that they're not really enemies, either. In an attempt to
make Sever more mysterious, the script by Peter M. Lenkov
and Alan B. McElroy throws so many twists into their loyalties
that describing who hates who and why could cause spontaneous
aneurysms in laboratory rats.
It all
has something to do with Gant (Gregg Henry, with all the rubbery
expressiveness of a Bogglin). This Aryan mastermind leads
some sort of shadow government that may be called the DIA.
Early on, the film implies that this organization is American
in origin, but it recruits Chinese orphan girls as its assassins
(shades of Batgirl!), has a Cockney second in command known
as The Prince of Darkness (Ray Park), and apparently has its
headquarters in Vancouver. At least the movie has just enough
respect for us to admit that Vancouver is actually Vancouver,
and not some alternate universe Washington, D.C.
Gant
has a seven-year-old son kidnapped by Sever, a rogue DIA agent
with an agenda of her own. The FBI brings in Ecks because
he's good, and because Sever might also have information on
the wife he thought was dead. (Seven years after her death,
in a random cellphone sweep, they pick up her voice telling
someone that she's going to be late. Add up the clues in this
paragraph and figure out another surprising plot complication.)
Sever,
too, once had a child, accidentally killed by Gant for reasons
never really supplied. At least three characters also previously
had other identities. It's like Dynasty with kung fu.
Actually,
that's another thing that gets bobbled by this movie, and
badly. You don't cast Ray Park for his acting abilities (sorry,
Ray). And yet, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever waits until
the last ten minutes for the guy to actually throw down and
get some action. When he does, the camera manages to always
hit just the right angle so that you really can't tell what
he did.
At least
near the beginning, Lucy Liu gets in some good fighting, proving
that she has what it takes to be an action star. This just
isn't the movie that will break her through. Seriously, I
sat through this movie trying desperately to figure out what
superhero she could play, because she would totally kick butt.
Perhaps if they age Batgirl a bit?
Later
in the movie, she takes on Banderas in some serious hand-to-hand
fighting, but the focus switches to the bad guys (or maybe
they're not) watching the fight.
Such
lapses in logic aren't the worst crimes this movie commits.
Time and time again, exposition grinds it to a halt, particularly
in a peculiarly emotionless confrontation between Ecks and
his ex. Later, this same ex-wife makes sure that she falls
right into the villain's hands.
Of course,
there's just something weird going on when your heroes stage
their final confrontation by luring the bad guys to their
own base of operations. Does Batman purposely let The
Joker come and mess up the Batcave? (It's an apt comparison
- much of Sever's character seems stolen from The Dark Knight.)
To be
fair, the commercial for this movie gets a five out of five.
But that's a commercial's job. What it covers up is a direct-to-video
actioner that somehow suckered in some high-profile talent.
If you see it late at night on USA, you'll be satisfied.
Do not
run to the theater to see this, and if you have to walk, by
all means, please do it in slow motion. You'll look much,
much cooler that way.
What's
It Worth? $1.50
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