Balls of Fury - The 90's called...

I had high hopes for this movie, after watching the trailer several months ago it really became a movie I was looking forward to, that I actually would go and sit down at a theater and be giddy at the start of the movie... unfortunately that excitement was quickly let down. Balls of Fury could easily have been made in the late 90's, with it's comedic pacing and cookie cutter action comedy formula. Dan Fogler gives a great performance and really could have been funnier if the script had allowed it. Maggie Q is just eye candy, not that she isn't appreciated eye candy, but I know she can do better then a B grade comedy that only asked her to play towards racial stereotypes and kiss a fat dude. Christopher Walken is Christopher Walken and does a great job of making you laugh at the ridiculous things he says. George Lopez... well, he was in the movie that's for sure.

The gist of the movie is the Randy Daytona (Fogler) was a child prodigy when it came to Table Tennis. He goes all the way to the 88 Olympics and loses, also he spouts some ridiculous line about Disneyland and is mocked too many time through out the movie about it. His dad is killed having put a beat on Randy, to win. Now Randy does Ping Pong tricks at a dinner theater. Lopez recruits Randy in order to infiltrate Feng's underground Ping Pong tournament. Lopez is apparently a long shot at capturing Feng, and is bored with his job not being more like James Bond... or Scarface. Randy must train to get back what he lost and so he begins training with Maggie Wong... played by Maggie Q... damn they didn't even try! Maggie's blind grandfather Master Wong (James Hong) is the head master giving guidance on Randy's road to being great again.

Probably the funniest part for me was when Randy is offered a sex slave, and he feels he can't turn it down, only it turns out all the sex slaves are muscular men. Randy's ends up with Oswald from the Drew Carrey show (Diedrich Bader) and he really steals whatever scene he's in. Really there were only a couple times that I really remember laughing out loud and I can't even think of what they were now. The problem with the movie is that theres not enough Ping Pong, and not enough Comedy. Not to many jokes weren't on the trailer, and the Ping Pong was boring and short. Also the movie got really rushed at the end, it's possible that they ran out of money and had to make due with what they had left to work with OR the script wasn't that good. Either way there was a lot of explosions and bad fight scenes that really weren't needed. It was a good first outing for everyone involved and maybe if the same team came together to make something else I would check it out, but I'd say the rush and excitement wouldn't be there again. Like I said this style of humor was most commonly found in the mid to late nineties and so that at least makes it a little fun to watch.