achtungbaby
09-29-2002, 04:37 PM
by Shuriken
The new shoot-'em-up, blast-'em-up, blow-everything-to-hell action movie "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is the second Hollywood feature to give Lucy Liu above-the-title, co-starring billing (opposite Antonio Banderas). And while I don't think it's particularly exceptional as a film, I at least found it to be unobjectionable in its portrayal of an Asian American lead character.
L2 plays Sever, a U.S. spy trained by the government from childhood and who started life as an abandoned baby girl in China. As the movie unspools, Sever goes renegade and kidnaps the son of a prominent industrialist, so the government sends burnt-out FBI agent Jeremiah Ecks (Banderas) to Canada (yes, the COUNTRY Canada) to go after her. And as the film telegraphs to the audience in the first five minutes, Ecks and Sever will discover that they have a common enemy and team up. Banderas and Liu get top billing, but "Ballistic's" real stars are the massive, volcano-like explosions — of cars, trains, buildings, everything but the emotions — that seem to erupt every ten minutes or so as Ecks and Sever go after each other and the bad guys. This is not a story about people. This is a story about pyrotechnics. And if you go into the multiplex, popcorn in hand, expecting anything more than that, you're gonna feel as bombed-out as one of the buildings.
full review (http://yellowworld.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=6)
The new shoot-'em-up, blast-'em-up, blow-everything-to-hell action movie "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is the second Hollywood feature to give Lucy Liu above-the-title, co-starring billing (opposite Antonio Banderas). And while I don't think it's particularly exceptional as a film, I at least found it to be unobjectionable in its portrayal of an Asian American lead character.
L2 plays Sever, a U.S. spy trained by the government from childhood and who started life as an abandoned baby girl in China. As the movie unspools, Sever goes renegade and kidnaps the son of a prominent industrialist, so the government sends burnt-out FBI agent Jeremiah Ecks (Banderas) to Canada (yes, the COUNTRY Canada) to go after her. And as the film telegraphs to the audience in the first five minutes, Ecks and Sever will discover that they have a common enemy and team up. Banderas and Liu get top billing, but "Ballistic's" real stars are the massive, volcano-like explosions — of cars, trains, buildings, everything but the emotions — that seem to erupt every ten minutes or so as Ecks and Sever go after each other and the bad guys. This is not a story about people. This is a story about pyrotechnics. And if you go into the multiplex, popcorn in hand, expecting anything more than that, you're gonna feel as bombed-out as one of the buildings.
full review (http://yellowworld.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=6)