Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: September 20, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
19
METASCORE
Overwhelming dislike based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
0
Mixed:
5
Negative:
21
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
There's no defense for movies like these, but neither do they warrant apology; they're irresistibly watchable, like car wrecks. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This grim, joyless motion picture is anything but fun. It’s a chore to sit through, with all the blazing, noisy pyrotechnics proving unable to lighten the mood. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyBruce Fretts
Kaos was apparently aiming for a coolly stylized, straight-faced take on ''Spy vs. Spy.'' As Maxwell Smart used to say, ''Missed it by that much.'' Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Cut down to a frantic 88 minutes, you wonder if all the human moments were trimmed away to get to this abstract, humorless exercise in empty flourish. Read full review
40
New Times (L.A.)Andy Klein
The plot can be really tough to follow, in part because Banderas' accent, rarely a problem in recent years, is surprisingly hard to understand at crucial moments, and partly because it's tough to keep track of just who's working for whom...and why...and even where.
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
About the only fun to be had in the movie is screenwriter Alan McElroy's cartoon spook-speak. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneRobert K. Elder
Offers the most onscreen explosions in recent memory. It's almost pornography for arsonists. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The tiny, impassive-faced Liu is a disaster. She looks cute in her custom commando gear, but she's not actress enough to make Sever's ridiculous, faux hard-boiled dialogue sound like anything but the formulaic nonsense it is. Read full review
30
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
I don't even care that there's no plot in this Antonio Banderas-Lucy Liu faceoff. It's still terrible! Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyPaul Malcolm
Thai director Kaos (a.k.a. Wych Kaosayananda), making his inauspicious Hollywood debut, still can't breathe any life into it. You'll just want to get back to your Game Boy. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Sometimes it seems as though Hollywood can't make a decent action movie anymore. Now that's a thought to make you go ballistic. Read full review
25
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
To pay for all the explosions and stunt work, the filmmakers must have decided to skimp on the screenplay. The rule of thumb is that one page of script equals one minute of movie, but there is so little dialogue in Ballistic that it could have been written on a matchbook. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The collateral damage of action products like Ballistic is to the sensibility of the audience.
25
USA TodayMike Clark
This is a movie in which you rarely know where you are or who's doing what to the next person. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
Amply demonstrates how even a movie with wall-to-wall action can be a crashing bore. Read full review
20
VarietyRobert Koehler
Remote, non-involving and finally incomprehensible. Read full review
20
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Looks like a video-game promo, has a story that plays like the fifth episode of a struggling syndicated action show, and feels like a headache waiting to happen. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
To make a bad movie worse, even Ballistic's fight scenes, which ought to be the film's strong suit, are poorly edited, slice 'n' diced into incomprehensible blurs. Read full review
12
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Banderas slums through this dollar-bin action flick wearing the same look of wiped-out exasperation that Danny Glover's Sergeant Murtaugh sports in each installment of ''Lethal Weapon.'' And like Murtaugh, Banderas might be too old for this, too. Read full review
12
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is a chaotic mess, overloaded with special effects and explosions, light on continuity, sanity and coherence. Read full review
12
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Zomboid, convoluted excuse for a thriller is among year's worst. Read full review
10
Washington PostStephen Hunter
You could run this film backward, soundtrack included, and it would make no less sense. --It's almost completely uninvolving, as well as being impenetrable. Read full review
10
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
The film isn't even as good as the second-rate game it is based on, which is nothing but a shootout. Read full review
10
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Before seeing this film I couldn't understand why the producers had given it a subtitle; afterward I realized "Ecks vs. Sever" was probably the full script. Read full review
10
Washington PostDesson Thomson
This movie pulls out so many bad-action-movie cliches, you wonder if this is a how-not-to primer. Read full review
0
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Movies don't get much worse. Read full review
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