The Bad Movie Ultimate Cage Match #3

Alright, fight fans, time for another Ultimate Cage Match! We got a new contender this week. Is he and his movie strong enough to take down the champ, Fletch and "The Happening"? It's up to YOU to decide!!

IN THIS CORNER!! Travis from "The Movie Encyclopedia"! We just did a podcast with Rachel and Tom last night and depending on when Fletch tells me how he wants the file to be sent, you'll hear it soon, hopefully before Christmas. Anyway, Travis' movie is:

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

"As a movie lover and someone who claims that "if no one else will see it, I will," I see my good share of really bad movies. I think that's why it was so hard for me to think of the worst movie that I have ever seen. I mean there are plenty of horrible B-Movies that I could have chosen from like Plan 9 From Outer Space or The Room but those, like Dylan said, are way too easy choices. Everyone knows how bad those two movies are and in fact they are so bad that I actually like them. I could have also chosen from any of the other B Movies that I have watched but most of them have already gotten the MST3K treatment and I think that's enough for them. I was half tempted to put Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin but...I actually kind of like it. Even though Arnold is a horrible Mr. Freeze, the Bat Nipples are distracting and there is even a BAT CREDIT CARD (AHH!! Sorry bad flashbacks), it kinda grew on me as an Adam West-esque cheesiness.

But there is ONE movie I can never forgive. One movie that makes me cringe just saying the name. Hopefully nobody has sat through this horrific mess but it must be said-Ballistic:Ecks vs Sever is the worst movie I have ever seen and probably the worst movie of all time. I mean the directors name is Kaos...which is what this movie is!

Ballistic:Ecks vs Sever should have been at least a decent movie. Antonio Banderas, as much as he butches the English language in this film by passing off as a red blooded American, is a decent enough actor and has done some good action movies (The Zorro series, Desperado) and Lucy Liu has too (Kill Bill, Charlie's Angels) but for some reason they can't even get action right. An action movie can either be one of two things: it can be a mindless shoot em up that is made awesome by its use of 1.special effects 2.over the top action sequences 3.amazing soundtrack 4.cheesy but awesome lines...OR an action movie can be a plot driven experience that is made better by the use of extensive action sequences with huge explosions. Films like Shoot em Up, Die Hard and even Terminator fill both of those kinds of action movie roles and they are all good movies.

But when a movie gets in trouble usually is when it tries to mix both together to make it "better." Well Ecks vs Sever doesn't do that. All the action sequences are really boring. I mean Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead had better action sequences than this, and Uwe Boll is considered one of the worst directors of all time! I mean at least with Boll it had a lot of slow motion and gore. This is just gun fight, gun fight, explosion, gun fight rinse and repeat over and over. You now your film is bad when Uwe Boll looks legitamite as a director compared to your film.

The story (I should put that in quotes) is your typical "we need an excuse to blow up stuff" plot with a kidnapping of a politicians son. Instead of just going with that though they had to put in a conspiracy theory involving Ecks (Banderas)' family being killed, which is only used to make us pity the character. Honestly everyone in this film is so morally corrupt and/or stupid that you really DON'T care about any of them. The title is also totally bogus since Ecks and Sever (Liu) WORK TOGETHER FOR MOST OF THE FILM. There really is no vs...I also got to mention the numerous amounts of plot holes, continuity errors and just one TOTALLY bogus plotline involving the FBI. Alright let me just say something...a lot of films are shot in Canada and they are made to look American. Well when you see street signs, monuments, and building signs saying that its VANCOUVER then bringing the FBI in to investigate just makes the film look dumber than it already is.

A weak plot, boring action, laughable acting and a total lack of effort from Kaos, the director, makes this in my opinion the worst movie ever made. This should be buried with all the copies of the ET game."

AND The Champion, Fletch with Mr. Night's "The Happening". I totally forgot Zooey Deschenel was in this, so yeah this movie is probably some shades of awful. A reminder on what Fletch said about "The Happening":

"I feel like I'm at a disadvantage here. This is, after all, a site dedicated to B movies, a genre (designation? status?) I'm neither all that knowledgable in nor all that much of a fan of (though I do loves me some Basket Case and The Room and crappy Sci-Fi - er, sorry, SyFy channel movies...maybe I'm a bigger B movie fan than I'm willing to admit). Anyway, I'm sure there are some turrible, turrible movies like Mega Whale vs. Giant Shrimp or whatever that I just haven't seen or possibly even heard of. And choosing The Room is just way too easy - it's the Citizen Kane of bad movies, after all, and it's been covered enough by people like me and Jason already. It would feel like cheating for me to select that one. So I'm going with a more mainstream film.

Of course, my selection also happens to be a layup, but at least it's a layup that everyone can agree on. It's none other than Shamalama-man's The Happening, a movie that tried to answer the question "What if someone attempted to make a low-budget apocalypse movie?" How else to explain the somewhat ingenious plan that required ZERO special effects to show all of the "destruction?" The deadly killer, the one that knocks off millions of people and causes global panic...it's in the air, man! It's, like, invisible. Perhaps for Night's next flick, all of the characters will be invisible, too, and maybe the sets as well - imagine the savings!

Of course, the cheesy "killer" and lack of anything visually interesting onscreen isn't the only thing that makes Happening an awful film. Nay, it has terrible acting up the yin-yang (Marky Mark talks to fake plants!), a serious case of taking itself too seriously, batshit crazy old women, horrible child actors, a complete and total lack of suspense - you name it. The only thing missing? A self-indulgent cameo by M. Night himself. Oh well, I guess we'll have to wait for It's Happening Again (in Paris)."

There you have it. Now THIS fight should be interesting. I'll be out of town until Saturday due to the holidays so this gets an extra day. You have until Saturday Afternoon to vote, so vote.

Sorry for the boldness of the next paragraph. It's important to me.

I need someone to step up and take on this week's winner next week! I know you wanna do it! It's a lot of fun! Just think of a movie you don't like and tell us why and that's it, done. Yes, even YOU can do it. So come on! Volunteer! Please? Don't make me beg.

Thanks!
-Jason