https://editorial.rottentomatoes.co...s-sever-is-the-most-rotten-movie-of-all-time/
Fifteen years ago today, the Antonio Banderas/Lucy Liu vehicle
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was released to universal disdain. This wasn’t just an unusually panned motion picture. No, as of this writing,
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever holds the distinction of being the single worst-reviewed movie in Rotten Tomatoes history.
This site tallied together the score of no less than 116 reviews (that’s a lot!), and not a single one was deemed positive. There wasn’t even a single contrarian, Armond White-style hot take — something like, “
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is the most important, humane and misunderstood film of the last forty years” — to throw off the film’s perfectly terrible score.
Usually when a movie is dubbed the worst of its time, or of all time, there’s a motley crew of defenders insisting that what critics and respectable folks think make it unforgivably awful is secretly what makes it awesome. That’s not the case here. As far as I know, there is no cult for this sad little orphan, just detractors.
- Rotten Tomatoes/the guy that writes for the AV Club
I bought that film 13 or 14 years ago, I worked next to a record store that had a big used movie section. I had never heard of Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, but it had Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu, plus the guy that was Darth Maul from the worst Star Wars movie and Toad in X-Men (Ray Park). Could it be that bad? I bought it for a dollar, just a year or two after it came out. I watched it exactly one time, and I never would again.
It was so bad. I mean, I'd put it in my pantheon of worst movies ever made. Sure there may be worse movies in terms of terrible, but this had absolutely zero redeeming features. There was nothing about this picture that made it enjoyable, or better, or new. The plot was poor, the action was almost unbearable, the main characters had zero chemistry, there were Baysplosions everywhere, and it just didn't make sense. It was boring. For an action movie, there was never anything that was even remotely exciting for me, amidst the shootouts and chases and fistfights. It wasn't memorable in any way EXCEPT that it was COMPLETELY unmemorable in EVERY way. Even the title doesn't make sense, because they teamed up to fight the big bad, so why is it Character A vs Character B in the title? Why is Ballistic in the title? Why isn't it just called Ballistic?
I'm sure you'll gladly chime in "that's not the worst movie, this is" but if you do, you're going to need to give an explanation because this one is among the worst of the worst.
