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Travis Willock reviews

Distributed by
Warner Home Video

Cert: R

Cat.no: 24429

Running time: 91 minutes

Year: 2002

Pressing: 2002

Region(s): 1, NTSC

Chapters: 26

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English, French

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Widescreen: 2.35:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: No

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: $26.98

Extras: HBO First Look, Know Your Enemy Interactive Game, Theatrical Trailer.

---

Director:

Kaos

Screenplay:

Alan McElroy

Cast:

Jeremiah Ecks: Antonio Banderas
Sever: Lucy Liu
Vinn Ecks: Talisa Soto
Gent: Gregg Henry
Ross: Ray Park
Miguel: Julio Martin

I'm at a loss of words. There are no sarcastic remarks that come close to summarizing the mess we have here. Well, might as well try. Debuting theatrically in September 2002 and already out on video you should be able to know that Warner wanted to shove this one out the door before anyone with at least an inkling of remembrance wouldn't forget it. I usually have a soft spot for the turkies (I actually like The Adventures of Pluto Nash believe it or not) but this exceeds the limits of my kindness to the underdog. This is crap, crap, mega crap (J. Jonah Jameson) at it's finest.

The story of Ecks vs. Sever is... hey, what is the plot? Is there one here? Somewhere beneath the garbage lies a tired plot of a device in a blood stream that would kill assassins... oh forget it. The plot is so ridiculous that I can't even sum it into human language. At the heart of it are two agents, Jeremiah Ecks (played well enough by Antonio Banderas) and Sever (the always ice cold Lucy Liu) who seem to be just wandering uncaring through the multitude of meaningless explosions and overstaged fight scenes. Garbage.

The first thing you'll notice is the poorly executed action scenes. Right off the bat we're treated to a fight where Sever arrives in a garbafe truck for no reason, then we have a huge fight where Sever takes on the FBI... for 15 minutes. Watch in marvel as someone falls in slow motion to the roof of a car! Grunt and groan as Ecks and Sever trade blows for no reason! Be amazed as to why Sever decides to free Ecks from a bus by blowing it up! There's even a twist in the film that makes no sense when Ecks is accused of shooting a man who knows he wasn't the one who shot him! Wait until you see the finale in a trainyard!

I hated this movie so much as to give it a zero. Rollerball: bad but mindless fun in some areas, Pluto Nash: fun on an 80s sort of sci-fi level, Battlefield:Earth: decent, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever: waste of power to run projectors across the country.

Despite the movie being terrible beyond belief, the transfer is pleasing. Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, it's great to see a Warner DVD nowadays without a full frame counterpart. The color pallate in the film is mostly cold blues, even the flesh tones have a cold and pale feel. Blacks are relatively deep when displayed. An annoying problem I found is the amount of noise and pixelization evident. Kind of hard to focus on the movie when jackets are moving with pixels. Overall though the transfer shines as the only good thing about the whole Ecks vs. Sever expierience.

I though the audio would be much better than this. This 5.1 track is pretty dull when it comes to bass and loudness. Dialouge is inaudible at times. The action sounds generic with the same explosions heard from a thousand movies. I was pretty dissapointed from this track.

Being the bomb that it was I'm suprised Warner didn't give this the bare bones treatment. That's not to say what we got here is any better. This how it all stacks up:

• Know Your Enemy Interactive Game: This lame feature is basically just a virtual rock paper scissors match between Ecks and Sever. Choose one and try to predict what the CPU will do next.
• HBO First Look: Standard promotional fluff for a movie that should have been locked away in a vault. You won't find any apologies here. Presented in full frame and non-anamorphic clips, runs 13 minutes.
• Theatrical Trailer: Anamorphic 2.35:1, pretty bad, should have been acompanied by a stern warning of side effects of sleep.

Nothing to write home about in the extras department and nothing to waste your time with.

Ecks vs. Sever is packaged in the trademark Warner snapper case. 26 chapters are here with animated menus showcasing the disaster ahead.

I'm serious, this movie is BAD, very bad. Don't go anywhere near this with a 20 foot pole and don't subject your DVD player with this filth. Avoid at all costs.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS	0 0
OVERALL

Review copyright © Travis Willock, 2002.

Email Travis Willock

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: