Though I gave a “two thumbs and both big toes” down for Eastwood’s BLOOD WORK, I actually found myself pining away for a second BLOOD WORK viewing as I sat through the abominable ECKS vs. SEVER.

ECKS vs. SEVER isn’t bad in the “normal” sense. A “normal” bad film has some redeeming value. ECKS, though, is nothing more than inane dialogue wrapped around a never-ending cascade of explosions. Explosions were used to dictate the movie’s pace, they were used to terrify innocent bystanders, they were used to destroy as many cars as possible, they were used to rip apart buildings, and they even blew up doors without trying to see if turning the handle would work!

After watching the luscious Lucy Liu (playing a rogue operative who kidnaps a young boy so that she can remove the secret nano-technology that is lurking inside of his body) unsuccessfully try to make something of a poorly written character, and after wondering how Antonio Banderas (playing a shattered FBI agent who can’t get over the death of his wife) could fall so far, I was left to ponder who was to blame for this celluloid train wreck -- this boring, mindless, and pointless abomination. Who could I lynch? Who could I punish for this huge waste of time?

My first thought was to hunt down and yell at Alan McElroy, the screenwriter (I’ve often envisioned a world where screenwriters are routinely killed if they pen a truly horrible script). But who can blame the poor guy if some producer blurts out (handing the writer a big check as he speaks), “Brilliant! You are a true artist! How many people would have come up with the idea of using explosions as a form of language?”

But is the producer really to blame, or should we point a finger at the director, Wych Kaosayananda? This Thai gentleman, who calls himself Kaos for short (seriously!), could have said, “What in the hell is this crap? You seriously expect me to ruin my career by making this thing?” Instead, he tried hard to turn the script’s gibberish into a stylized visual piece. He tried and he failed…badly.

Now that the pain of watching this thing is beginning to fade (even the after flick party failed to dispel the depression that ECKS created) due to passage of time, I can be a kinder, gentler critic with a very simple message: you have been warned, and if you secretly rent the vid and pop it into your machine, the only person left to blame is looking at you in the mirror.