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Balls of Fury
Rogue Pictures

Balls of Fury reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 38 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
4.6 out of 10
based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 36 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor, and for language

Starring Christopher Walken, Dan Fogler, Thomas Lennon, Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt, Maggie Q, George Lopez, and James Hong

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. (Rogue Pictures)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Comedy  |  Crime  
WRITTEN BY: Thomas Lennon
Ben Garant
 
DIRECTED BY: Ben Garant  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: December 18, 2007 
Theatrical: August 29, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Andy Spletzer
The reason Balls of Fury works as well as it does, aside from its low aspirations, is because of the charm of Fogler in the lead. Like Jack Black, but not as sarcastic, he brings a winning enthusiasm to the role.
Read Full Review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
Stupendously silly but viciously funny.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Mark Feeney
The movie flaunts its ridiculousness and offers a relentless string of jokes about blindness, groin-bashing, and bodily odors.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The first movie combining Ping-Pong and kung-fu and co-starring Maggie Q. How many could there be?
Read Full Review
63
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
If it's not quite the best Will Ferrell movie he never made, Balls of Fury is, at the very least, a lot funnier than it has a right to be.
Read Full Review
63
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Even at just 90 minutes, Balls of Fury - with its caricatures of the Asian underworld, with its G-man malarkey and gay jokes (Feng keeps an all-boy bevy of sex slaves) - begins to outstay its welcome.
Read Full Review
60
The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
The good news is that Christopher Walken, resplendent in purple silk, isn't the film's sole redeeming element. The bad news is that even his arch-villain can't save Balls of Fury from losing bounce as the story proceeds.
Read Full Review
58
Portland Oregonian Lisa Rose
The shtick grows a bit repetitive, so by the end of the story you may be checking the time rather than rooting for Randy.
Read Full Review
50
Premiere Marilyn Smith
Ultimately even the strongest characters deliver mixed results.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This is pretty thin soup, but the players are spirited and the jokes generally offbeat.
Read Full Review
50
Miami Herald Connie Ogle
The few jokes it does land can't make this more than a look-what's-on-late-night-cable event.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Brian Lowry
Relentlessly silly in spoofing martial-arts movie conventions, Balls of Fury has roughly enough laughs for a first-class trailer but wheezes, gasps and finally goes flat through much of its 90 minutes.
Read Full Review
50
Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
A lifeless pingpong comedy that ricochets from one flat gag to the next.
Read Full Review
50
TV Guide Ken Fox
In the grand tradition of "Beerfest" and "Bladels of Glory," this insistently ludicrous -- and not entirely unfunny -- two-joke comedy satirizes an old Hollywood standby: the big-comeback sports movie.
Read Full Review
50
Baltimore Sun Gene Seymour
As disposable as aluminum cans without the promise of a cash return.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
The real trouble is that it's supposed to be an outrageous comedy, but in fact it's fairly tame and not all that funny.
Read Full Review
42
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Add Balls Of Fury to the list of movies that not even Walken's moon-man delivery and oddball comic energy can save.
Read Full Review
40
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The nicest thing is the Asian American actress known as Maggie Q.
Read Full Review
40
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Intended as nothing more than a here-today, gone-tomorrow zany entertainment, and at the very least, it has a good-natured, slightly raunchy spirit about it. But ultimately, it's a hollow enterprise, all ping and no pong. It doesn't bounce; it splats.
Read Full Review
38
USA Today Claudia Puig
Balls of Fury makes "Dodgeball" look like high art. It'll be tough to crack a smile, let alone laugh, during this uninspired and sophomoric satire of sports movies.
Read Full Review
30
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Raunchier and somewhat more imaginative than “Hot Rod.”
Read Full Review
30
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
A mildly entertaining reworking of the Farrelly Brothers' superior micro-sport parody "Kingpin."
Read Full Review
30
LA Weekly Nathan Lee
1. Balls of Fury is a movie about: a. A former table-tennis prodigy enlisted by the FBI to infiltrate the underground pingpong tournament of a legendary Chinese criminal. b. Suppository jokes.c. Little worth discussing and even less worth seeing.
Read Full Review
25
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Mostly unfunny, extremely silly pingpong comedy.
Read Full Review
0
Film Threat Mark Bell
Steer clear of Balls of Fury for as long as you draw breath. Period.
Read Full Review
0
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A joke of a title in search of a movie with a single good joke.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 4.6 (out of 10) based on 36 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a0:
Pure sh*t if you watch the preview you can see all of the best jokes in the movie. it is very predictable. not worth the money. i actually wanted my money back after that.

Kenan H. gave it a2:
It was too over the top for me. I love ping pong and thats why it got a 2.

Simon W gave it a10:
Great movie, do yourself a favor and go watch this.

Mike M gave it a6:
Balls of Fury (**1/2) - Does the title sound promising? To most people, probably. It was promising to me. And well, if you go in the theater expecting nothing, you don't really leave disappointed. But you don't leave completely satisfied either. It is an absolutely out there, insane movie that as you could probably guess, bears no witness to reality or the real leagues around the world that have carried the name of ping pong for thousands of years. The laughs are set at a low bar, but sometimes are able to hit their mark, if anything just for effort. The main problem of this movie is it seems, like its title, to really just be a one-liner. The jokes can be about balls, and the men hitting the balls, but there's really nowhere to go off of that, and to work 90 minutes on balls and men who hit balls, you aren't really going to be able to pull off anything of comedic integrity. However, you root for the main character, you are generally intrigued in how the movie plays out, and well, you have to stick around for most of the movie to see Christopher Walken anyway, so i advise you stay, for that's when some actual laughs start making their way into the scenes. See this movie if you are prepared, just be warned: Balls, and men who hit balls.

Josh M gave it a0:
Yeah this movie was amazingly unfunny. It's not that I was expecting anything other than a dumb comedy either, but there was no comedy to speak of. It was just dumb and I'm a sucker for stupid laughs. I can't stress enough how bad this was. Balls of Fury went down as the first movie I've ever walked out on. Thank god I didn't pay to see it.

John L. gave it a0:
this was one the worst movies I ever sat through..It has poor comic timing and the story was completely lame ..dumb jokes and bad cinematography even the hot Asian girl couldn't save this weak movie..George Lopez should be ashamed of himself..I'm glad I didn't pay for it I snuck in.If it weren't for my friend wanting to stay I would have left!!!

James G. gave it a4:
I'm a Brit, and I went to see this movie while I was in America. I wouldn't see it again, The comedy wasn't even apparent most of the time. A lot of it was doing silly things like playing ping-pong with a spoon. Could be funny for some, but I didn't laugh. So thats how it fails. It's meant to be a silly comedy movie but it's not even funny.

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