Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Good concept, poorly executed.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is a film where I want to ask the leading actors how embarrassed they felt when they watched it for the first time.The problem of the film is that it seems to be made only by the stunt and pyrotechnic department. The story telling is so bad that for the first half of the film it seems that there is no story at all. The film tries to be clever and unfolds the story late. But at that point it became so boring that it was hard to stay interested. The script is just bad.If someone likes a bunch of action scenes, great. But no action film works without a good story and a good rhythm to tell this story. However, even the action sequences are destroyed by awful music. Most of the time I thought: Why am I watching this? What is the purpose of this scene or this motorcycle chase? This is a film nobody has to see. A film full of action but without any thrill or excitement. There is no storytelling, no real filmmaking. It lacks the heart of a good film.PSSome people say that this is an action movie and therefore delivers what we can expect. But it is a poor action movie. As for the actors, there is no room to shine and to give the characters some depth. One could ask if they actually has a script and a plot or just a collection of action film stereotypes to run through.

...........it even has a thin story line, it even has a believable subplot, ..........................but it's more of a movie for the boom and the brass flying than for anything else. Further, a movie that depends on a video game for recognition can lose potential audience members. I've never heard of this game "Ecks vs. Sever" before today. Picked up the movie more for its femme fatale classification.Hence, those three factors, of boom and guns, of based on a video game, of good looking babes, means that this movie was probably made for the adolescent male.Come to think of it, aside from the femme fatale, the injured lover, and the hooker on the street, I can't recall any other woman in this movie with a speaking part.It's okay; the photography is wonderful and some of the angles are fantastic; it's 91 minutes of non stop action without really that much blood although for the amount of bullets flying at the hero and heroine, one would expect that at least a stray shot might hit.But it is hardly memorable. Major supporting characters are there then disappear from the rest of the movie. It's an endless supply of professional Federal SWAT who don't stand a chance against the heros and as the movie moves on, turn out to be quite the amateurs. And while the villains probably succeed in getting the audience to hate them, the heros fail in getting the audience to love them. There is no sympathy for the innocent and they might as well just be a picture on the wall.

The acting of both Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas is very low-key - same as you would expect from main roles in a Western; very simplistic and sparse, seemingly shallow were it not for the implicit references to shared knowledge, which the audience is only let in on through flash-backs or from other characters. This way of acting suits them both excellently, and creates an attractive ambient atmosphere, energized by their martial encounters and growing mutual sympathy.The bad guys (Gregg Henry as Gant and Ray Park as his right hand Ross) do not contribute a whole lot to this movie. Gant is the sinister/smug/self-absorbed crook which Gregg also embodied as Val Resnick in Payback, and Ross' vocabulary is annoyingly redundant, particularly his constant use of the euphemism 'cancel' (one might be inclined to blame this on the script, but more subtle acting could have pulled it off by not emphasizing 'cancel' each time).Perhaps what I like most about this movie is that Lucy has a major role. In her other movies she is mostly spice to the plot, although Lucky Number Slevin does allow her personality to surface. To me, Ballistic is the best Lucy-movie. She makes a very lovely femme fatale, even agonizingly crisp in a catsuit.Do not watch this movie if you consider lack of dialog synonymous with shallow acting, or if you are just not a fan of low-key acting. If, on the other hand, you enjoy good atmosphere in a movie, Ballistic may be one of those you want to return to from time to time.I give it a low 7, and would have gone higher if the feel of the movie were not occasionally fractured by the Gant and Ross characters.

This film could've been the Action blockbuster of the 2002 summer, but it's sloppy music video-style editing, stunts and very "oddball" script just ruined the idea of a successful film. Franchise Pictures should go out of business because they used the same money-making ploy on BATTLEFIELD EARTH ( don't get me talking about that film) where they had a convincing cast, a good-looking movie trailer, etc. and then the plot just has a couple of things go wrong and then the movie just gives up and goes downhill.You guys have probably already caught part of it on late-night cable, but didn't know what it was called and didn't care to after seeing such a weird movie. If this had been made in Hong Kong ( seeming how their action films always have huge plot holes, but yet no one complains about that ), then it would've had interesting characters and insane stunts, but that's just a dream. My problem was that the editing wasn't really good, there was an unnecessary sub-plot ( involving a "believed-to-be-dead" wife and son ) as well as too much odd humor/philosophy that you only see in these type of movies.Antonio Banderas ( who was in a similar, but way entertaining film known as "Assassins" ) and Lucy Liu ( "Kill Bill"; "Charlie's Angels" movies ) do good withwhat is given to them ( dialog, stunts, etc. ), but their characters will neverbe as memorable as other Asian characters like Inspector Tequila from "Hard-Boiled." And Lucy Liu isn't as physically durable as other Asian stars like Michelle Yeoh and all the fight scenes could have been choreographed by Yeun-Woo Ping ( "The Matrix" trilogy, etc. )Plus, the director Kaos is no John Woo. He over-uses the "slow-motion" effect to where it gets pretty old, real quickly. Directors Ridley and Tony Scott, Michael Bay, Antoine Fuqua, Robert Rodriguez and, even George Lucas, could have done a better job making the film flow along without it feeling repetitive like a video game ( which, ironically, this film film is loosely based on a little-known GameBoy game ).Also, whenever you use techno music, try not to have it play just randomly or take awhile to finish because that is just being lazy and sloppy. Kaos has it be in the back- ground during the fight scenes ( which are the only real highlight, but yet lack any real tension ), but has it change rapidly or way too instantly to where it's just unneeded.I'm being fair and honest when I say that I wasn't expecting anything new, but entertaining for 90 minutes; I even looked at all the bad reviews and laughed to myself because the critics act like they have never seen a film like this before ( Plus, nothing is worse then "Howard the Duck" ) and watched it on T.V. anyway. I wasn't expecting an "over-the-top"Jerry Bruckheimer and/or ultra-violent film. I just expected something decent.So watch this only if you like movies that have the usual clichés, have wooden characters/dialog and want a low-budget "Popcorn" film with pretty tight stunts.And why is this "Rated R"?? A thirteen-year old kid could handle this film 'no problem.'Also, the above 5/10 is just being generous because I think this might appeal to fans of music videos & this is far from the WORST movie out there.