It's just so awkward. Only reasonable explanation as to why it is so hated. I mean it, not trying to be sarcastic or anything. People create deep perceptions on small things all the time. It is the dennis the denver dentist phenomena http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2005/08/dennis_the_denv.html
shareIt's awkward because to put "X vs Y" in a title is pretentious. The fact that the names of to entities going at it are in the title means that someone thought this might intrigue the target audience. But one must know who Ecks or Sever is to know if this is a fight worth watching. Since no one has a vested interest or even knowlege of the identity of either, the title then turns them off.
King Kong vs. Godzilla works. We know who both are. Godzilla vs. Megalon works. We may not know who Megalon is before we see the movie, but we know Godzilla, so we know this will be a big fight.
The film is called Ballistic with Ecks vs Sever as a subtitle. It has that subtitle because the film is based a game called....Ecks vs Sever.
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I agree with you about the title. I've never heard of this movie until a few minutes ago. I thought "Ballistic" was some sort of ball sport and the teams were "Ecks" vs. "Sever".
It wasn't until I saw the year (2002) that I realized it might be a movie.
Really? You think people hate it because of the title? I mean, please don't get me wrong, I agree with you -- it's an awful title. But that's fitting, being that it's an awful movie. And if people hate it, that's probably why.
Yes, a title can provide a first impression of a work, and yes, people can for deep impressions based on first impressions. But anyone who forms deep impressions of this movie should have his perceptions examined.
-EdM.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I think if it had a better name, it might have done marginally better because it would have turned off less people. I know when I heard the name, I didn't even want to see the trailer.
shareHave to agree.
Didn't think a movie with Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu could be so brain-dead.
These are talented people. Would it have been so hard to give them a passable screenplay?
No, it's just flat-out a terrible movie. I watched this for the first time about a week ago on TV2. I don't know why I kept watching it...I guess it's like a train wreck you just cant look away. It had really great actors in it, too. It just seemed poorly executed.
shareExactly! People hate it because it's a crappy movie.
Who says violence is not the answer?
It's a bad movie, but yeah, I think the title brings it down a further notch or two. It really is terrible. Even 'Ballistics' is a crappy title, and the 'Ecks v Sever' part just confounds it. Awful.
shareBallistic: Ecks Vs. Sever is the worst title I have ever seen for a big budget movie. Ballistic would have been a much better title, but it still would have been a terrible title. And the movie isn't very good, but was it really the worsts film of the decade? I would think one of the films starring a former cast memeber of SNL would probably rate as worse, there were a lot of awful films that had either Rob Schneider, Dana Carvey or an ex SNLer in it. I have not seen Dumb and Dumberer, but it was probably a worse movie than Ballistic Ecks vs. Sever.
shareTitle should read "I think people hate this movie because of the plot holes"
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Need more X-files...
I don't get why people just energetically trash this movie. NO, it wasn't a great movie, but it was an action flick. Guns, explosions, killing.....and a woman in tight clothes. How bad could it be?
-That's all the time we have, thanks for playing.
I do think that people probably avoided the movie because of the title. The title reads like it's a sequel. Is this part of the Ballistic series? Or is it a combination of two previous movies à la Freddy vs. Jason?
There was a comic book called Ballistic a few years before the movie. I had never read it, but being a comic book collector, this briefly piqued my interest. Then I found out the movie and comic were unrelated.
Anyway, the confusing title is why I avoided it, both in the theater and on DVD.