6 - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002
Movie is a dud, despite all the explosions
MOVIE REVIEW
Techno music rages, hardware flashes and bullets stream endlessly through the air in Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever, a movie clone job that never reaches the dizzy heights of a Hong Kong action epic. Think John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2, minus Woo's craft and cool.
Stephen Shupe
sshupe@kansan.com
Ray Park and Lucy Liu play agents in the action flick 'Ballistic: Ecks vs. Severs.'
Antonio Banderas, his face as rugged as gravel, mopes around as Agent Ecks, who's gunning for Agent Sever (Lucy Liu), an assassin who kidnaps kids and mows down entire city blocks. The plot mentions something about a lost wife and son, and a secret, bionic machine that pricks the heart until it stops beating is mentioned to establish a few tiny story fibers. None of it makes a bit of sense, so the destruction takes center stage.
Director Wych Kaosayananda, who misrepresents himself by going by the name of Kaos in the opening credits, seems to think he knows how to stage flashy pyrotechnics, but his pulsing soundtrack accompanies not a single "Wow!" moment, not one thrilling set piece. Parts of the film promise to be spectacular — a motorcycle chase on a packed highway, a hand-to-hand showdown on a rooftop —
then take on the pace of the tortoise rather than the hare.
Kaos' use of slow motion continues the tradition of Eastern action experts who try to bring weird metaphors to their movies. This slowing down of things often looks as hilarious as Charlie Sheen's spoof of Rambo in Hot Shots! Part Deux. Other incomprehensible images of dolphins, fish and birds contribute to the general silliness.
Acting chops might have saved the movie from airing on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but Banderas and Liu are reduced to a single facial expression each, as if they were attempting to mimic the thespian style of David Duchovny; call the film Pedestrian: Mulder Vs. Mulder.As the mysterious arch-villain Robert Gant, played by Gregg Henry (Payback), works
with an innate blandness, even his surfboard-shaped head can't energize.
Surely, as fun-loving filmgoers, we could find a better use for the reported $70 million spent on this high-octane trash. In these jaded times, who wants to see bloodless violence and casualty-free explosions, anyway? Instead of seeing this movie, get ten friends together, pool the price of an admission ticket and make a $50 short film. The result won't be nearly as lifeless as Ballistic.