Movies about secret agents, classified information and espionage have a license to excite. After all, they feature the types of situations and action to which the average Joe never even comes close.
The new film "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" certainly concerns G-men and intrigue. But it commits the cinematic crime of boring viewers rather than wowing them.
The plot is convoluted, yet it's of little consequence. For the record, Antonio Banderas plays Jeremiah Ecks, an FBI agent who doesn't know that he has a young son by a wife (Talisa Soto) who thinks he's dead. Lucy Liu is Sever, a disconnected operative who kidnaps the boy from under the nose of malicious Robert Gant (Gregg Henry), the man who has replaced Ecks as husband and father.
Gant's major concern is a microscopic device embedded in the boy's wrist -- essentially, the little machine is an undetectable and untraceable assassin. Of course, Ecks and Sever sidestep the title to team up and to stop the villain.
The story sounds good on paper. But both the actors and filmmakers struggle to bring it to life. The cardboard characters certainly don't help.
Ecks is a particularly bland hero, and Banderas can't save him despite his good looks and sensual rumble of a voice. Sever, meanwhile, is played by Liu as the quintessential killing machine. Her demeanor is as cold as the metal encasing her numerous firearms. She is more of a shadow than a human being.
The same could be said of Ecks, who also lacks that third dimension. Neither of the title characters has much depth -- We learn precious little about what kinds of people they are when they're not wreaking havoc and spilling blood. There is not enough life and too much cliche in their words. The stars spend more time fighting than acting -- as a result, the film's emotional impact is dead on arrival.
