Movie Review for Balls of Fury

Summary: In the unsanctioned, underground, and unhinged world of extreme Ping-Pong, the competition is brutal and the stakes are deadly. Now, this outrageous new comedy serves up this secret world for the first time on-screen. Down-and-out former professional Ping-Pong phenom Randy Daytona is sucked into this maelstrom when FBI Agent Rodriguez recruits him for a secret mission. Randy is determined to bounce back and recapture his former glory, and to smoke out his father's killer ¿ one of the FBI's Most Wanted, arch-fiend Feng (Academy Award winner Christopher Walken). But, after two decades out of the game, Randy can't turn his life around and avenge his father's murder without a team of his own. He calls upon the spiritual guidance of blind Ping-Pong sage and restaurateur Wong, and the training expertise of Master Wong's wildly sexy niece Maggie, both of whom also have a dark history with Feng. All roads lead to Feng's mysterious jungle compound and the most unique Ping-Pong tournaments ever staged. There, Randy faces such formidable players as his long-ago Olympics opponent, the still-vicious Karl Wolfschtagg. Can Randy keep his eye on the ball? Will he achieve the redemption he craves while wielding a paddle? Is his backhand strong enough to triumph over rampant wickedness?

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Kevin Carr of 7M Pictures (7/0)
            Too many scenes...are left to pitter out on screen with the punch-line power of a bad SNL sketch....

By Kam Williams of AALBC.com (7/0)
            A breakout role for Dan Fogler, who comes across as a combination of Johns Belushi and Candy, exh...

By Rebecca Murray of About.com (7/0)
            How much you'll enjoy Balls of Fury depends solely on whether you're into juvenile humor, groin s...

By Dan Jardine of Apollo Guide (7/0)
            While it's at times inspired, ultimately, its attempt to play with the conventions of both martia...

By Marc Savlov of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
            Just barely goofy enough to sustain its 90-minute running time.

By Christopher Smith of Bangor Daily News (Maine) (7/0)
            In spite of what's its title suggests, "Balls of Fury" isn't a sex comedy. The balls of fury here...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Mark Feeney of Boston Globe (7/0)
            ...amiable, nicely observed, and surprisingly shrewd...

By Fred Topel of Can Magazine (7/0)
            Thank god somebody remembers how to do comedy. It's really simple. If you're doing really silly t...

By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            Don’t expect me to explain the rules and purposes of the tournament, if it has any. I was preoccu...

By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            Don¿t expect me to explain the rules and purposes of the tournament, if it has any. I was preocc...

By Joshua Tyler of CinemaBlend.com (7/0)
            The supporting cast is too talented for the film to fail fully.

By Joshua Tyler of CinemaBlend.com (7/0)
            This is a one-joke movie, and it's a joke that's been done dozens of times before.

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By James Rocchi of Cinematical (7/0)
            Balls of Fury may be fairly specialized (How many sports-flick/martial arts parodies can you name...

By Mark Palermo of Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) (7/0)
            Balls of Fury is intended as a spoof of Enter the Dragon. That's important to know before walking...

By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (7/0)
            Director and co-writer Robert Ben Garant can't deliver a single joke without forecasting it.

By Edward Douglas of ComingSoon.net (7/0)
            You won't completely despise yourself for enjoying it, but it's not the non-stop laughfest one mi...

By Alex Markerson of E! Online (7/0)
            ...gets a few wicked shots in...but too often finds itself without a paddle.

By David Foucher of EDGE Boston (7/0)
            Martial arts hysteria, ping-pong wit, and even a bevy of gay sex slaves. What's not to love?

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Brian Orndorf of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            A loose string of emaciated ideas that probably cracked up the writer's room, but on the screen i...

By Dan Lybarger of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            Thanks to a sloppy, anemic script and indifferent direction, 'Balls of Fury' lacks the stones to ...

By Peter Sobczynski of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            I can't say that it is some kind of comedy classic or that it even rises above the classification...

By Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy.Com (7/0)
            A juvenile comedy aiming for dumb, obvious humor, Balls of Fury fails horribly as lame spoof of s...

By Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
            It's the kind of comedy that finds Asian people hi-lar-ious because they're...Asian. (Are you lau...

By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            An Enter the Dragon parody? Really? Did it take 34 years to come up with a really good premise?

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Frank Lovece of Film Journal International (7/0)
            There are...maybe 13 seconds of laughs in the movie. But, to be honest, they're good laughs.

By Mark Bell of Film Threat (7/0)
            Steer clear of Balls of Fury for as long as you draw breath. Period.

By Chris Cabin of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            The film's inconsequentiality isn't a matter of pedigree; it's a matter of effort

By Victoria Alexander of FilmsInReview.com (7/0)
            No. No. No.

By Brent Simon of FilmStew.com (7/0)
            In one scene, co-star Christopher Walken is very clearly reading from cue cards.

By MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher (7/0)
            Funnily enough, though -- and it's the only thing funny about this dreadful excuse for a comedy -...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Rob Vaux of Flipside Movie Emporium (7/0)
            Balls of Fury is bad, but it's not really bad, and I suppose that's a victory of sorts.

By Bill Clark of FromTheBalcony (7/0)
            Balls of Fury loses some steam as it enters its second half, but it never comes close to derailin...

By Jeffrey Lyles of Gazette (MD) (7/0)
            Proving that there is indeed truth in advertising, "Balls of Fury" is every bit as terrible as th...

By Kamal Al-Solaylee of Globe and Mail (7/0)
            It may look episodic and disgracefully low-budget in places, but there's also a theatrical qualit...

By Ross Anthony of Hollywood Report Card (7/0)
            Opens without a pulse, fires intermittent blanks throughout, musters up momentum with a silly sen...

By Sheri Linden of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
            It's the killer pingpong action that ultimately keeps Balls afloat.

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Kit Bowen of Hollywood.com (7/0)
            The surprisingly funny Balls of Fury's tagline may read, "A Huge Comedy with Tiny Balls," but it ...

By Stax of IGN Movies (7/0)
            It's a shame that a movie with so many genuinely funny and talented people involved wasn't better...

By Liz Braun of Jam! Movies (7/0)
            Everyone in the movie appears to be having a very good time, an attractive quality in a comedy. Y...

By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (7/0)
            no joke is too stale, no set-up too contrived, and no standard too low

By Prairie Miller of Long Island Press (7/0)
            Balls Of Fury sweeps across the screen with delightfully wacko one liners per second, locked soli...

By Mark Dujsik of Mark Reviews Movies (7/0)
            When [the jokes] should be riotously funny, they're merely amusing; when they should at least get...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Pete Hammond of Maxim (7/0)
            Super BAD!

By Mack Bates of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (7/0)
            Unfortunately, it loses its sense of humor as it gets more desperate to find its way to the end.

By Colin Covert of Minneapolis Star Tribune (7/0)
            It's schlocky and tasteless but also good-natured and harmless, and the people who come out to se...

By Frank Ochieng of Movie Eye (7/0)
            Look, it could have been worst if the premise involved yak racing so we need to thank our lucky s...

By Michael Dequina of Mr. Brown's Movies (7/0)
            Without a particularly funny nor compelling lead, the hits in the already scattershot script are ...

By Kurt Loder of MTV (7/0)
            Could a movie that mixes table tennis, spies and kung-fu action star anyone else but Christopher ...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Lou Lumenick of New Movies (7/0)
            ...mostly unfunny...

By Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News (7/0)
            Lennon, Garant and Fogler are masters of the prolonged punch line, extending a joke so far that i...

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (7/0)
            ...terrible...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            This awful slapstick martial-arts tournament send-up is all bad ideas and worse execution.

By Nathan Rabin of Onion AV Club (7/0)
            It's never an encouraging sign when a comedy filled with talented pros produces only a single dis...

By Nathan Rabin of Onion AV Club (7/0)
             Add Balls Of Fury to the list of movies that not even Walken's moon-man delivery and oddball com...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Fiore Mastracci of Outtakes With Fiore (7/0)
            It tries to do for ping pong what 'Dodgeball' did for that gym game.

By Mike Sage of Peterborough This Week (7/0)
            the insanely corny plot should appeal heavily, especially to audiences who grew up on awful late ...

By Bill Gibron of PopMatters (7/0)
            Right, you guessed it. It is Enter the Dragon with dorks.

By Linda Cook of Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) (7/0)
            The concept is kind of funny.Christopher Walken is kind of funny.The only thing wrong with the mo...

By Timothy Knight of Reel.com (7/0)
            A top contender for the summer's worst comedy...

By Jeffrey Chen of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Has its moments, but a little too often the comedy runs into this problem of starting with the pu...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com (7/0)
            Ultimately, it's a hollow enterprise, all ping and no pong. It doesn't bounce; it splats.

By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (7/0)
            Any movie that ends with Christopher Walken joining in a group singalong of 'Pour Some Sugar on M...

By Larry Ratliff of San Antonio Express-News (7/0)
            Fogler resembles a hybrid of the late John Belushi and 'Superbad' co-writer and co-star Seth Roge...

By Walter Addiego of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
            ...it's supposed to be an outrageous comedy, but in fact it's fairly tame and not all that funny.

By Eric Melin of Scene-Stealers.com (7/0)
            It is a pretty remarkable feat when the most memorable thing about a feature-length movie is its ...

By Sean McBride of Sean the Movie Guy (7/0)
            It’s high camp and silly, but not nearly funny enough to drive the audience to frequent bouts of ...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Andy Spletzer of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            A weird Walken and likable lead make Balls of Fury fun.

By Nick Schager of Slant Magazine (7/0)
            To put this miscalculation in terms the filmmakers will understand, they don't Armageddon it.

By Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com (7/0)
            Balls of Fury is precisely the kind of dud that gives a bad name to films opening over the lazy L...

By Rob Salem of Toronto Star (7/0)
            The movie's big lug of a lead, Dan Fogler...could be dismissed as a poor man's Jack Black.

By Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide (7/0)
            Insistently ludicrous.

By Brian Tallerico of UGO (7/0)
            You know the feeling you get from the Apatow comedies that the people who made them are really tr...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Claudia Puig of USA Today (7/0)
            ...uninspired and sophomoric satire of sports movies.

By Nathan Lee of Village Voice (7/0)
            [Question:] Balls of Fury is a movie about: a. A former table-tennis prodigy enlisted by the FBI ...

By Willie Waffle of WaffleMovies.com (7/0)
            relies on so many kicks and blows to the crotch you might think you are watching some sort of str...

By Stephen Hunter of Washington Post (7/0)
            Nothing original, nothing outrageous.

By Daniel M. Kimmel of Worcester Telegram & Gazette (7/0)
            ..a second rate comedy that too often goes for the cheap laugh, and then fails to get it. [Howev...

By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            Both 'Balls' and 'Rush Hour 3' include scenes in which the lead characters walk gingerly because ...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Chad Greene of Boxoffice Magazine (6/1) No reference
            This low-level laffer seems set to bounce out of theatres in short order.

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (6/1) No reference
            It's clear that Balls of Fury is trying to be dumb-funny... But Balls of Fury -- is much dumber ...

By Tom Long of Detroit News (6/1) No reference
            Balls of Fury is a stupid movie that's not quite stupid enough, or at least not quite funny enoug...

By Scott Von Doviak of Fort Worth Star-Telegram (6/1) No reference
            Just another one-joke sketch that goes on forever.

By Adam Fendelman of HollywoodChicago.com (3/4) No reference
            Thank you. Try again.

By James Sanford of Kalamazoo Gazette (6/1) No reference
            There were more good laughs in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation speech than there a...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly (6/1) No reference
            Just another dumb, lowbrow comedy.

By Kevin Crust of Los Angeles Times (6/1) No reference
            ...a lifeless pingpong comedy that ricochets from one flat gag to the next.

By Kevin Crust of Los Angeles Times (6/1) No reference
            Goodness, gracious, there's no greatness in Balls of Fury, a lifeless pingpong comedy that ricoch...

By Matt Pais of Metromix.com (6/1) No reference
            Taking no risks at all while avoiding anything too offensive, Balls of Fury has neither balls nor...

By Connie Ogle of Miami Herald (6/1) No reference
            While it's sporadically amusing, Balls of Fury scores fewer points for humor than it could have.

By Lisa Rose of Newark Star-Ledger (6/1) No reference
            Something of a surprise, Balls of Fury serves up sports thrills and a good amount of laughter...

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Gene Seymour of Newsday (6/1) No reference
            Christopher Walken has joined the legion of stand-up comics, student actors and bar-stool mimics ...

By Lisa Rose of Oregonian (6/1) No reference
            The shtick grows a bit repetitive, so by the end of the story you may be checking the time rather...

By Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel (6/1) No reference
            Ben Garant fumbles the formula he's mocking, denying us the spectacular and hilarious matches tha...

By Steven Rea of Philadelphia Inquirer (6/1) No reference
            While Balls of Fury is slightly more sophisticated in its comic strategies, 'slightly' remains th...

By Mike Ward of Richmond.com (6/1) No reference
            Imagine if Chris Farley had been a Gremlin ... the good, cute gremlin. Fogler would be what happe...

By Moira MacDonald of Seattle Times (6/1) No reference
            ...there are plenty of funny bits, but the movie runs out of ideas long before its end

                         Reviews of Balls of Fury
By Josh Larsen of Sun Publications (Chicago, IL) (6/1) No reference
            ...this is two parts Blades of Glory and one part Enter the Dragon, though it's missing Will Ferr...

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (6/1) Not Reachable
            There are laughs in Balls, but not nearly enough of them.

By Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone of TheMovieChicks.com (6/1) Not Reachable
            Ancient Chinese saying: tiny ball with no laugh, make bad movie.

Movie Distributors
Rogue Pictures (Focus)

Production Companies
Spyglass Entertainment Group

Movie Studios
Rogue Pictures (Focus)