Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever.

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Pugsley Crew Reviews, where we talk about all manner of films, whether they're good, bad, or anything in between, really. Today joining me is a cur 9000. How you doing, dude? [00:00:21] Speaker B: I'm all right. How you doing, chap? [00:00:23] Speaker A: Yeah, not too bad at all. Just I watched one of the films we're going to be talking about later today, but this film I watched previously, and the film we're watching is Ballistic X versus Server, which I believe is based on a video game called X versus Sever. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Not entirely. It's really weird. Back to front. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Apparently this started as a script in the 1980s called Legion. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Right. [00:00:56] Speaker B: And for whatever reason, it didn't get made. Didn't get made? Didn't get made. Then it got turned into another film. And then on the cusp of it getting made, a video game was made about it. But the game came out first. So the game comes out, then the film comes out, then a new version of the game which is closer to the film comes out. [00:01:23] Speaker A: Right. [00:01:23] Speaker B: So it's. It's really weird. So it's not really based on a game, but because the game came out first, everybody thinks it is. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Ah, well, there you go then. That's something I just learned. So the. Was the game based on the film or was it just the kind of the game? [00:01:46] Speaker B: The first game was based on a draft for the film which didn't get filmed. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Right. Okay. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Then the second game was based on the actual film. Bit of a weird situation that we could. I bet we could look for years and years. We never find this situation. Exactly. [00:02:08] Speaker A: Again, no, probably not quite an interesting one, actually. Well, for those who haven't seen the film, it's about two agents. One for the. Was it CIA? CIA, dia? Something like that. [00:02:26] Speaker B: One's the FBI and one's a rogue agent for the dia. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Dia yeah, that's the one. [00:02:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:34] Speaker A: And that X is FBI. Who is in the film? Antonio Banderas. And the person who plays Seva is Lucy Liu. See, I was surprised that they had like Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu because I thought this was gonna be like a really low budget film. They must not have been. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Wow. Basically the quoted budget for the film is 70 million, which sounds like a hell of a lot. But the producer apparently has been caught before inflating budgets for films. And it's believed that really the budget was 35 million. But to like do tax write offs and whatever and big it up. They force, you know, inflated it to say it was 75. Oh, no, sorry. It was. It was 44 million, not 35, I think something like that. [00:03:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:38] Speaker B: It was either 35 or 44, but they inflated it and made it seem a bigger deal. [00:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder why. Well, tax, like you said you would have thought though, because there's quite a few faces I recognized in this other than Antonio Banderas and Lucillo, but you know. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know his name, but the main villain. I kept thinking, I know who you are. I've seen you in other stuff. Yeah, dead familiar. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. That was. He was one. Then there was the guy, the bald guy with the mustache. [00:04:15] Speaker B: Oh yeah, come along. [00:04:17] Speaker A: I know him from things. Know. But so basically it's about them getting this. Antonio Banderas is like, you know, well, seems like he's just drinking a lot because his wife went missing or something. And he gets involved in this because a Lucy Liu or. Or s. Sorry, kidnaps a child. But it's not until like most the way through the film that you find out why. You think it's because she just wants revenge. It is partly because of that, but it isn't at the same time. It's more about helping. Helping the kid at the same time as bucking over his supposed father. [00:05:12] Speaker B: I mean, it's hard. It is a very basic 80s type film of good cops, bad cops, crooked regimes. But then it's got all that weird stuff about bullets that can put a virus in you that give you a heart attack. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:30] Speaker B: And apparently that wasn't in it originally. That was put in it because the Matrix got popular. So they wanted to put something semi sci fi computery into the. To like make it appeal to modern audiences. [00:05:44] Speaker A: Well, I didn't see the point in that. [00:05:47] Speaker B: No, no. I think it does show that it wasn't put in to make the film make sense or as a real plot. It was, let's throw something in that will give a sort of Matrix esque feeling, hopefully as a selling point. And it does just fall flat. It might as well not exist. It's just a MacGuffin that's a means to an end. [00:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like what was the point? You know, you could just shoot someone and kill them anyway. Why would you need to shoot them with a bullet and then make them have a heart attack? Just. Just shoot them and kill them. You know what I mean? It just doesn't seem to make any sense as to why you would need to shoot someone then go, aha. Heart attack. [00:06:30] Speaker B: I mean if you want them to have a heart attack. So it looks Nice and innocent and don't involve you giving the heart attacks around someone in a bullet. Put it in a coffee or, you know, I mean, it's. Yeah, I can understand why you'd want that serum, but I don't understand why you'd want it in bullets. But, you know, clearly they just wanted something in a film that they didn't think had been in a film before that. [00:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah, at first I thought the film was quite cheesy, and it is pretty cheesy, but I didn't find it as cheesy as it went on. I don't know why. Seemed like cheesy beginning. [00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think when you started to know more, like whose kid it really is and you start to care more and they became more of a core to the film than just before. It was just like explosions and cheesy one liners and a mess, really. [00:07:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Also the. The use of slow mo was weird. There was a point like this, it was used quite a bit. But one. At one point it was Antonio Banderas and his wife. They'd finally meeting up and they were running and it was slow mo of their feet. I was like, why? [00:07:55] Speaker B: Again, I reckon the Matrix. Slo Mo had worked in the Matrix. That was popular. Let's put Matrixy things in. Because Matrix equals money. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I get that. But like, when they use slow mo, most of the time it was during, like when Lucy Liu was firing off guns and stuff. Whereas that scene specifically, it's like, why are they doing slow mo feet? [00:08:24] Speaker B: Maybe Quentin Tarantino was visiting the set on that day. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Possibly. I didn't think of that. [00:08:36] Speaker B: Do you know this film made the most hated list of Roger Eber? Do you know who Roger Eber is? [00:08:43] Speaker A: Isn't he that guy, the Revoo guy? [00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Siskel and Eber, they both worked for famous newspapers that reviewed films. And then they got like a TV show in America where they'd both review the film and give it a thumbs up or down and say it was crap. And this was after Siskel had died and Roger Eber had gone with a guy called Roper. But they had it on their show and he said it was one of the worst films he'd ever seen. And I'm like, yeah, you're being a bit harsh, mate. [00:09:12] Speaker A: I think so. Like the game. The film isn't particularly amazing or anything, but it was all right. It was an action film. [00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it's one of those films where it's throwaway entertainment. I can't see myself going, oh, let's put ballistics XV server on again. Let's have a one year, you know, watch it once every year. No, but are you gonna watch it and go out? We're all right. [00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, you would. I, I would agree with her completely actually, because I, I was like. By the end, I was like, that's all right. At first, like, oh, that's a bit cheesy. And then even my miss is like, I wouldn't expect Lucy Liu to be in something. So. Cheese, I said. And then I turned around, said she was in Charlie's Angels. Yeah, like, fair enough. Anyone? [00:10:03] Speaker B: My favorite bit in it. And I'm trying to explain this, but I'm sure you'll know the bit. I mean, there's a gun and a guy's told to put it to his head and kill himself or shoot it, but he turns it away to fire it at the guy and the shot comes out the gun backwards and kills him. And I thought that was really neat. [00:10:23] Speaker A: That was pretty cool. But at the same time I was confused how the fuck it happened. But. [00:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah, but what would have happened if he had put it to his head and pulled the trigger? Would they have let him live? Was it like a test? Or would he have like shot a random pigeon across to the left and then they'd have killed him anyway? [00:10:39] Speaker A: I mean, you know, I reckon if he had shot himself and it. They would have let him live cuz he's proven his loyalty. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what, that's what I probably thought, but I just thought it's. It's not something I can. That's one thing that I can't think of seeing in a film before. Maybe it is, but it just struck me as a cool moment and something I didn't expect. [00:11:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think I've seen anything like that in a film where the. The gun just shoots it the wrong way. Yeah. So when it comes to this film, I thought it was all right. Yeah, it's. It was. It was a right action film. There was nothing particularly to write home about and nothing. Well, the story wasn't exactly great, but it's passable. Don't know why this would be on someone's hated list. They must not have watched a lot of films. So basically, as I was saying just now, the film starts off with a kid getting captured by Lucy Liu. The. The FBI get Antonio Banderas to come in on the case because they needed him. I don't know why they needed him. He then is chasing Lucy Liu for a while. Lucy Liu escapes from him and kicks his ass several times, literally. And turns out the kid is hit, I think. Yeah. [00:12:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:28] Speaker A: And I. I don't know. And also the guy who. The bad guy, Gant. He seems to have been a different person. Like Agent Clarkson or something. Agent Clark. [00:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah. That confused, I suppose. You know, the change of identity for the sake of. And I know I get the feeling maybe he was in more. Involved in different agencies or something, playing them off. I could be wrong. [00:13:08] Speaker A: I have no idea. I'm not. I'm not sure if it was like he used to be in the FBI and then he decided to become a different person to have his own agency or something. I haven't got a clue. Doesn't make sense to me. Because other people who would know him and who saw him and normal. Oh, that's. That's Agent Clark. Why is he going by Gant? [00:13:37] Speaker B: I do think this is one of the films where apparently the director was told he'd have like control of the final cut and he could film what he needed and he'd put it together. And then I think that he got pushed off and they re edited it. And I just think that something somewhere has been lost along the way. It's pieced together weirdly. And that could also be why it. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Is possible at the end of the day that things are missing or needed to be added that wasn't there. But knows at the end of the day, like I said, it was an okay action film. But you know, I can't see me watching her again. [00:14:26] Speaker B: No, I think the game. The game's held in much higher regard. I think it was a very early. Yeah, it was a very early first person shooter for the Game Boy Advance. And it. Because obviously really the Game Boy advance is a mostly 2D console. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:48] Speaker B: There is some Doom and Wolvenstein and stuff on it, but it's not really its strong point. And I know they did a lot of complex programming and if I remember there's no looking up or down on it. And they made it very flat so that it had a good sort of frames per second in it. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:07] Speaker B: So it was held in quite high regard at the time for what it achieved on the system. Whereas I think the film's genuinely. I think it's got like an absolutely dirt rating on rotten tomato. It's IMDb ratings. 3 point. I'm guessing here from memory, but 3.8. Maybe something around that line. Whereas I think the game got a lot of like 80%. [00:15:34] Speaker A: I don't think I would say the film is quite as bad as like a three. I would give it quite an average rating of like 5 because it's very average. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I was reading something the other day, this is going back to games, but there was a big thing where loads of magazines were scoring average games of seven. Yeah, they were considering the seven, the average. And it was because basically the studios making the games would throw shit fits if the game was average and got five because they thought it had never sell. And I'll never get that because to me five or six is average because it's right in the middle of the pile. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Yeah. For me, when I say. Yeah, banging them. [00:16:23] Speaker B: If I say. If I say 5 it's average to low average. 6 is average to high average. 7 to me is reasonably good. [00:16:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:16:35] Speaker B: So when I say I'd give this 5 6, I am saying it is, you know, bang on the line average. You could do a hell of a lot worse. You could do a heck of a lot better. But it doesn't deserve all the hate it gets, that's for sure. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know why it received so much hate because like, yeah, it's. No, it's not brilliant or anything, but it was okay. It, you know, you people blew up and got shot. It's all you really need something to. It's a kind of. Unless it was trying to be touted as the next big thing and it just didn't happen. And that's. People had like massive expectations or something and were disappointed with it. But for me it was just like, yeah, just average action film. Some people getting shot, things blowing up. [00:17:27] Speaker B: I mean, maybe it's an American perspective because 2002 back then, yeah, there's Internet and stuff. But it wasn't quite. Things weren't as worldwide as they are now. Now we seem to know everything about everything straight away. We're on the ball. I don't remember when this came out, having a sudden clue what it was or seeing adverts or. So maybe it was a big thing in America with adverts plastered everywhere. It didn't hit its mark and we didn't ever get that kind of fuss about it. So we're viewing it in a different vacuum as some random film we've found that sort of passed us by. [00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I only heard of it because someone mentioned it on the Grkade chat stuff. So I was like, ah, cool. And I'll have a look at that. Same with Samurai Cop, they mentioned Dara as well. It's like, oh, you should watch Samurai Cop. I was like, all right, suggestions are great. [00:18:28] Speaker B: I know, I know that film, Samurai Cop has got a cult following. There is, like, people out there obsessed with it. So for good or bad, we'll get into that. [00:18:42] Speaker A: Head into that next time. [00:18:45] Speaker B: I do think it's, it's quite fit in that we've done this film and Samurai Cop back to back because there's a lot of ground where you can compare because they're both action films, but one had big budget and the other had no budget. But they're both essentially trying to tell similar stories. One on 50p and one on 50 million. So it's, you know. [00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I don't really have a lot to say about this. Like, the story was kind of like, meh. I didn't really care about that. I don't know, it just seemed, it just seemed like, okay, like, you know the problem. This is the problem, see, with, okay, if something is average, it's kind of, it's kind of, like, bland, if that makes sense. If something's really bad, you'll have a lot more to say about it because it's like, yeah, this is awful. And then you'll go on your reasons for it. If something's really good, you'll talk about the good things. Something's just okay. It's like, yeah, it's all right. You know, I can't say much else other than that. [00:19:59] Speaker B: No, I mean, I'd say with this. The soundtrack's awful because it's like bad video game music. The effects are good, the stunts are good. The plot is meandering. So it's all middle of the road because there's everything that's good. There's something bad to take away from it. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:20] Speaker B: But it's, it's not a film that you can really talk that much about. I think in a short space of time, we've covered most of the good and bad about it. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. One thing that was issue for me personally on my TV was the sound. It was hard to hear people talking sometimes because there'd be, like, music in the background. Fucking hate that. [00:20:43] Speaker B: I do actually think that's a problem with a lot of films in general and even more nowadays. I think explosions are always incredibly loud. Gunfire is always incredibly loud. Talking's really quiet. So you'll get where they're talking and you're like, are they whispering or what? So you'll turn the volume up and the next minute, bang. And, like, you go. So you're always playing the game of turning it down and up. And I think maybe the next medium we get after Blu Ray or whatever, what you need is ultrable sound where you can set your own level for music, talking, explosions. And I mean, as I'm sort of quite deaf one side, there's things I struggle with where sounds tend to bleed together. And I think, you know, it would have a helpful aspect to it there for people that are hearing disabled in different ways. You could, you know, make the things you need to hear be the dominant sound. [00:21:48] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree with you. I find it really awkward with films a lot of the times, like, what are they saying? I would put subtitles on, but then I'll be reading the subtitles. So there you go. Anyway, I don't think there's much else I'm gonna say about this film. You may as well check it out. There's worse films to watch. You won't be blown away, no pun intended, with let's talk about things blowing up. Yeah, it's all right. [00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:21] Speaker A: And that's gonna be us then. Any memorable lines from this you can think of? [00:22:29] Speaker B: Not really, no. I didn't find a lot of the. That that might be where one of the things this film really does fall down because there's no line in it I remember whatsoever. They needed to get somebody in, like Quentin Tarantino to just add some because he's got a thing where he adds quite human dialogue, hasn't he? You know, little talks about Burger King or something that make people seem relatable or quippy one liners. And that's what this was missing, really. There was nothing that made any one moment stand out. [00:23:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it just means I won't put a little Q video bit at the end, that's all. I can't think of anything. There you go. Maybe I'll put the slow mo clip of them feet. The stupidest part of the film. Slow mo feet. Brilliant. Right, that's gonna be us. Thank you for everyone who's listened. We'll be back in a fortnight with Samurai Cop. Bye bye. [00:23:36] Speaker B: Bye. [00:23:43] Speaker A: Work.