Watch the balls fly in this hilarious, action-packed comedy starring Christopher Walken (Hairspray) and George Lopez (The George Lopez Show)! When former professional table tennis phenomenon Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) is recruited by FBI Agent RodriguezBalls of Fury will score points with anyone who ever wished that Enter the Dragon played out in the subterranean “underbelly of ping pong” instead of the world of martial arts. Tony Award-winner Dan Fogler (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), joining the ranks of Jack Black, Seth Rogan, and Jonah Hill as a schlub (romantic?) hero, stars as Randy Daytona, a Def Leppard-loving ping-pong wizard who, as a 12-year-old, was disgraced at the 1988 Olympics. Nineteen years later and gone to seed, he is reduced to performing a novelty act in Reno until an FBI Agent (George Lopez, and yes, at one point, he will proclaim, “Say hello to my little friend” a la Al Pacino in Scarface) recruits him to infiltrate an underground ping pong tournament run by Feng (Christopher Walken), the arch villain who killed Daytona’s father. Co-written by Reno 911 colleagues Robert Ben Garant (who also directed) and Thomas Lennon (who costars as Daytona’s taunting East Berlin rival), Balls of Fury is hit and miss, but it fitfully kills with some ace performances, including Walken, bringing more cowbell, as Feng, resplendent in silks and red fingernails (his Christopher Walken impression, while perhaps not as uncanny as Kevin Spacey’s or Jay Mohr’s, is dead-on). James Hong puts a wicked spin on the clichéd role of mentor, and action babe Maggie Q rocks as his niece. Look quick for David Koechner as hopeless entertainer Rick the Birdmaster, Patton Oswalt as an obnoxious early opponent, Kerri Kenney-Silver as a showgirl, and Diedrich Bader as one of Feng’s imprisoned sex slaves (don’t ask). With less go-for-the-groin humor than the title might indicate, Balls of Fury brings its A-game with some subversive bits of business, such as an ominous moment that is undercut when a menacing character is forced to re-enter the scene to ask for directions back to the highway. –Donald Liebenson
Buy “Balls of Fury “ For Only $3.62
June 8, 2008
#1
New DVD moveis are “Time Sensitive” This order never arrived. Amazon stated they were going to replace the order.
June 8, 2008
#2
One would think a movie made from the guys responsible for “Reno 911″ (and its great movie counterpart) and featuring the creepy, yet at times, hilarious Christopher Walken would be, at least, interesting. Well, no, it isn’t.
This movie is really lame. I know that’s not a great description for most people, but it truly is. It doesn’t offer anything new to the comedy genre. Toilet humor is not really funny anymore, especially when you recycle jokes over and over again. I laughed ONCE during this entire movie (thank goodness for Diedrich Bader and a panda) and that’s why I gave it 1 star.
The rest of the movie is an utter mess. Walken isn’t funny, Dan Fogler isn’t funny, Maggie Q should be sexy (but she’s hooking up with Fogler, so now she’s not sexy), George Lopez does nothing, and Robert Patrick picks up a paycheck. Even Terry Crews (who I found hysterical in “White Chicks”, “Click”, and “The Longest Yard”) is wasted.
If you’re looking for a great comedy right now, go watch “Superbad”. That movie made me laugh. If you’re looking for a terrible comedy with one funny joke about a panda, then this is your best bet.
June 8, 2008
#3
I watched this movie in the theatre. It had very few funny scenes. I got bored after watching it for 20 minutes. If you like Chris Farley’s jokes, you might like this film.
June 8, 2008
#4
Balls of Fury wasn’t really funny to me. It TRIED to be funny, but failed. It’s about a man who gets involved in a tradition where it’s believed ping pong is the most important thing in the world, and as a result, the man goes through tournaments until he meets the very best player.
Unfortunately, the story is WAY too goofy for its own good to really feel any positive vibes from the tournament as the man kept winning. In other words, you won’t really care about the guy as he keeps winning because the entire story is one extremely goofy segment straight into another, and all the while NONE of it is even remotely funny. It’s just a greatly exaggerated story that does nothing to keep me interested. Come on, if a ping pong player loses, he has to DIE by having darts shot in his neck? Or how about the scene involving the supposed “dragon master” of ping pong, and it turned out to be a little schoolgirl?
None of that stuff works for me I’m afraid. And nothing really happens with the ping pong aspect of the storyline. At least, not as much as it *should* be focused on ping pong.
It’s best to skip this one.
June 8, 2008
#5
I don;t even want to explain what this is about, it’s just not worth me saying anything more then you should avoid having to sit through this movie. It’s jokes are lame, it’s humor is dull and it’s plot is a seen-it-before 100 times scenario.
The pacing is too fast, the … euhh, sigh… take my word on it, avoid it.