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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 15255
Released: December 18, 2007 |
| Our Price: $4.73 |
| Used Price: $1.22 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
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 Rodriguez
Description of Balls of Fury (Full Screen Edition):
Balls 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
Balls of Fury (Full Screen Edition) Reviews:
Balls of fury 
2008-10-31 - This movie is so stupid it's funny. these types of movies are awesome. i love slap happy stupid humor films. this movie will make you laugh untile you cry. it a pretty good film.
Insipid time waster 
2008-09-28 - This movie contains one fantastically hilarious joke, a couple of chuckles, and a slew of corny sight gags and banal "wackiness". However, the humor wasn't so dreadful that I was disgusted, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't sink to anywhere near the depths of vulgarity that most films of this ilk plumb, so I give it 2 stars.
Good for a dumb movie
2008-08-31 - This has to be, quite possibly, the dumbest movie I have seen in a very, very long time.
However, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think there was a single moment in this film that purposely wanted any smidgen of intelligence whatsoever.
And, heck, the reason I went to see this movie was because I thought it looked funny. And, guess what? I laughed. I don't know if this will go into the treasury of greatest stupid movies ever made, but it did leave me with a smile on my face.
I think it was because it was ping-pong. Yes, I like a good game of ping-pong as much as the next person, but come on. It's ping-pong. Just try telling that to these characters. The fact that anyone could take so slight a game so seriously cracked me up.
And that's where this movie works.
It's pointless, silly, and down-right brain cell killing. But I found myself forgiving everyone because they were so good-hearted in waltzing around with their idiotic humor.
No, it will probably not be nominated for Best Picture. But as for dumb comedy goes, this nicely held its own.
Campy, cheesy, lame and ridiculously funny in parts... 
2008-08-19 - While it's certainly not high cinema, it did have its share of gut-busting laughs... I liked a lot of the casting.
I'll grant you, a lot of the humor was sophomoric, or crude, or offered deadpan (which was funny in its own right in a few instances), and there were some slow, boring and/or predicatble stretches. But on the whole I generally enjoyed it (since I knew about what to expect). If Amazon did half points, I'd give it 3.5 stars. I definitely liked it more than Beerfest, which is rather similar but with drinking games instead of ping pong... I thought this one was carried off better and considerably funnier.
"Enter the Dragon" with ping pong 
2008-07-31 - "Balls of Fury" is a competent and amusing movie. As the previous reviewer put it, it's silly fun. It rarely provokes anything more than amusement - this is not a belly-laugh kind of comedy. But "Balls of Fury" provides laughs for 90 minutes and then fades to a bizarre music video that may be the best part of the film, and that's enough for me. Thomas Lennon and Diedrich Bader steal every scene they're in, with Lennon's East German ping-pong ubermensch being perhaps the best character in the film.
"Balls of Fury" is worth a rent if you're in the mood for a comedy and you've seen the other comedies on the shelf already. You'll probably forget you ever saw it two weeks later, but at least you'll enjoy it while you're watching it.
