Have you ever wondered why the most exciting about tennis is the pain in your neck you develop after moving your head from left to right? The same applies to table tennis aka ping pong.
In the case of "Balls of Fury," it's more like a pain in the butt.
Randy Daytona (Dan Folger) was once one of the best table tennis players in the world, when he was no older than a teenager representing the U.S. at the 1988 Olympics. His father's betting and subsequent murder causes Randy to being knocked out at the '88 Games made a mockery out of him since he uttered those famous words of "I'm going to Disneyland"-after he lost.
Eventually, Randy goes from ping-pong mastery to table tennis theater. Overweight and out of a job, Randy is offered a new chance at redemption by FBI Agent Rodriguez (George Lopez). The FBI want to take down a major member of the Chinese criminal underground known as Feng (Christopher Walken).
The plan is for Randy to infiltrate the organization by earning a golden ping-pong paddle, an invitation to Feng's illegal underground table tennis tournament.
Rodriguez enlists Randy in the teachings of Master Wong (James Hong), a blind ping-pong sage whose school of table tennis is a room above his take-out restaurant. To assist Wong is his niece Maggie (Maggie Q), who is affluent in playing four men in ping-pong at the same time-before laying them out with various martial arts moves. As all things go in movies, the fat, white slob of a male is attracted to and courts the slender, attractive, more athletic female.
At the tournament, Feng has those that lose killed by his assistant Mahogany (Aisha Tyler). "What part of sudden death don't you understand?" Feng says.
How original. We've never seen that one before.
Quite simply, "Balls of Fury" is nothing more than a one-joke movie, earning moderate-to-strong chuckles at best. There is a nice set-up and pay-off involving the translation of a riddle inscribed upon the golden paddle. And that is about it.
Folger, admittedly, does have some potential as a comedic actor of pratfalls. He seems a gifted physical comedian that just is given so-so comedy here. Some antics here resemble that of Lou Costello in the great Abbott and Costello films of the 40s and 50s. The problem here is he doesn't have a partner-or much funny jokes.
There a few bright moments of fun but nothing gut-busting. Not even cough-inducing or heart rate-raising. Comedian Patton Oswalt has a fleeting moment of mild humor as an asthmatic ping-pong champ who can't even run through the paper banner proclaiming his name, "The Hammer."
Also, Thomas Lennon, best known as Lt. Jim Dangle on Reno 911! and also co-wrote this, channels his inner Deutschland as the German ping-pong player who eliminated Randy from the '88 Games.
The basis of the film centers, of course, on the extra eccentric yet oddly fitting casting of Walken as a Chinese crime lord. Advertisements, trailers and TV spots all put his role in the spotlight, and yet, he doesn't show up until halfway through the movie. Then, when he's finally on screen essentially playing himself, proving that he doesn't have to tell a joke: he is the punchline.
Except this movie is sans punchline.
Feng shouts during one of the matches "Less talkie-talkie. More ping-pong!"
Yes, less talkie-talkie, but more laughy-laughy, too.
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"Don't bother with "Balls of Fury." Save your eight bucks for something a bit more entertaining, like perhaps 16 games of Skee-Ball -then you're guaranteed to get something in return - like some tickets you can cash in for a spider ring or at least some Smarties." ByAdam Frazier
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