Disclaimer: I like Albert Pyun's films. But "Ticker" is awful. I don't know how it could have happened. OK, I suppose I do know how it happened. It was, after all, pretty easy to spot the doubles used for the actors in over half the film, as well as the bad looping accompanying it. The opening stock footage sequence and endless shots of the bomb-disarming (or is that 'device-treating'?) robot in action didn't help the picture any either. This was a low budget effort, only it was a low budget effort made in a terrain unfamiliar to Pyun Los Angeles. Even in a "bad" Pyun film (Omega Doom, Blast, Nemesis 4), there is that familiar Pyun style that makes the experience palatable. But in this case, if it weren't for the appearance of various Pyun players (Weisser, Malcon, Halsey, and a lunchbreak cameo by Ice-T), I would have never been able to tell that "Ticker" was directed by Pyun. There was no thought put into this one whatsoever, it seems. I'm more apt to believe what was implied on the director's commentary, that over-the-hill-and-then-some action guru Steven Seagal had more to do with the production of this movie than Pyun did. Yes, I did listen to the commentary. And if I didn't feel like an hour and a half were stolen from my life beforehand, I felt twice the impact after viewing it with the audio track. My advice to others: if you feel the masochistic desire to see the DVD, and have any interest at all in the commentary, just watch it with the commentary the first time and get it done with. You won't miss a thing from the movie, as minutes nay, entire chapters go by without either of the guys saying a word. I'm not sure why they even bothered with a commentary; it's fairly obvious how this movie was "made".
