My History With Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever (2002)



There are a few main types of blog posts that I do for the Sunday “Bad” Movie blog posts.  The first is a review type of thing for the movie that I watched for that week.  I tend to do that more with the newer movies that I’m not sure have been seen by too many people.  The second is relating how that movie fits into a theme within bad movies.  That can be a tougher one to do because I don’t always have the knowledge to give me confidence about the topic.  The third type of blog post, and the one that I’m doing this week, is my history with the movie being discussed.  An example of each will be in the notes at the end of this post.

This week’s movie is called Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.  Those of you that know the movie know that it’s not a good movie.  It stars Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu as two former special agents pitted against each other by Gregg Henry and Ray Park.  Why are they pitted against each other?  Well, it’s because Lucy Liu kidnapped a kid that Gregg Henry put some sort of tech into.  Then there are explosions and choreographed martial arts.  That’s basically the entire movie.

I first saw Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever about three years ago.  It wasn’t my choice to see it, and I wasn’t overly enthused about it when it was over.  What happened was this.  I was at university.  My dorm room was actually an apartment type of thing with a common room area that had a decent amount of space.  Every week, some friends would come over and we’d watch some movies.  It was our routine and we liked it.  The person who picked the movies was usually me, with their input, but sometimes I wasn’t the one choosing.

This specific fateful weekend, it was one of my friends that chose the movies we watched.  It ended up being a double feature of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever and, I think, The Book of Eli.  I was still a newcomer to appreciating the good within the bad and wasn’t as open to Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever as I probably should have been.  I detested the movie when I first watched it.  I hated almost everything about it.  It was like a blinding rage.  Fast forward three years and I’m once again watching the movie.  The only difference is that I’m watching it this time of my own accord.  Also, there was the idea that I was going to write about the movie after watching it.

I recently sat down for the rewatch of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever and was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had remembered.  I think that my distaste for the movie grew to an unfounded hate over the years because memories seem to strengthen opinions.  If you remember disliking something, but you can’t remember why, then you only have the memory of disliking it.  This memory festers and grows to a point where you can’t possibly dislike it that much.  I didn’t remember anything from Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever outside of the cast.  I had no reason to dislike the movie but I disliked it.  And thus, my hate grew without reason to grow.

Upon rewatch, there were parts of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever that I liked.  The choreography of the fights was decent, though unfitting for a movie that didn’t seem like it was going for stylized.  It was out of place, but kind of fun to watch.  The explosions were good.  It was nice to see real things blow up instead of a giant computer generated mess.  I appreciated these aspects of the movie this time around.  They might not make it a good movie, but they sure keep it from being the worst.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is a movie that I remember hating, but upon rewatch, kind of liked.  It may have been naivety that made me dislike it so much upon a first viewing.  I’m not entirely sure.  Sometimes a rewatch can help to shed new light on a movie and bring to your attention some things that you might actually like.  That is the beauty of movies, and the beauty of this blog.

There are some notes that I would like to make right now:

  • One example of a review type of post that I’ve done is the post I wrote for Freelancers.
  • One example of a post about how a movie fits into a topic is the post for Starcrash.
  • One example of a post about my history with a movie is the post for The Room.
  • Steve Bacic and Tony Alcantar were both in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.  They were also both in TheMarine: Homefront.
  • If you have any suggestions for future movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movies posts, feel free to suggest in the comments, or talk to me on Twitter.

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