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Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)
The Revenge of Cardboard Villains
In short, Luci Liu and Antonio Banderas must've been desperate to risk their future career to star in this wreck. Having those two stars on board, a lot of money must've been wasted on this rather forgettable turkey.
Hey, don't get me wrong, I love mindless action movies. But even a mindless action movie needs a lot more than just a catchy soundtrack and a bunch of dynamite to make it more entertaining than a 4-minute long Linkin Park video clip.
Even a marginally decent action flick is capable of making the bad guys so nasty that in the end we don't have any choice but root for the good guys. However, Kaos is not even capable of rehashing that tried-and-true formula. His movie suffers from poor character development. I don't care if the good guys win, since the villains are so laughably two dimensional. They're just empty cardboard props ready to be used whenever necessary. Just like those villainy machine gun-toting anonymous robocops resplendent in their bombproof uniform, who miraculously keep getting back on their feet, even after being bombed at, shot at and booby-trapped.
Toward the end, we are subjected to lengthy and rather pointless scene of empty freight trains being blown up to pieces. I didn't really see the purpose of this scene. However, now thinking about it, I think the reasons for that scene is just to wake up the audience for the final showdown between the good guy and the bad guy!
In the end, when the arch villain asks Bandera's character Sever, 'That's it? That's what you're capable of, despite all that training?' We actually want to ask Kaos that very same question.
The Transporter (2002)
Unbearable!
I went to see this movie not expecting much more than a movie full of good ol' fashioned car chases with expensive cars being blown to pieces. However, except for the first bank robbery chase, this movie does not have enough masterful driving actions to make up for Jason Statham's unbearable tough guy posturing and Qi Shu's horribly wooden acting. Furthermore, the baddies are laughably two-dimensional and predictable.
I wanted to leave half way through the movie, yet the thought that I might see a burning Porsche colliding with a TGV (which I did not, to my disappointment) was the only thing that glued me to my seat.
If you want a good car chase movie set in beautiful European scenery, forget this one, and go get yourself a copy of Ronin.