Randy Dakota (Dan Fogler) is quite possibly the greatest table tennis player the world has ever produced, but his failure at the 1988 Olympics and the death of his father derailed his shot at glory. Years later he’s given a chance to redeem himself when an FBI agent named Rodriguez (George Lopez) asks Randy to infiltrate an underground ping-pong tournament sponsored by Feng (Christopher Walken), the criminal kingpin responsible for Randy’s father’s death. The Feds are sure Feng is once again up to no good, and Randy is their only way into Feng’s lair. But the road back isn’t easy, as Randy is forced to overcome his own lingering doubts and the slings and arrows of those who think he’s a has-been.

CRITIQUE

I’m not sure I can do this again. I’ve written reviews of more than my share of painfully unfunny comedies over the past year, so I’m not sure what I have left to say. I wish I could just tell you that I didn’t laugh once during Balls of Fury and be done with it, but you deserve more than that. Problem is, I’ve been wracking my brains for the past several hours and really can’t think of anything else to say.

I initially thought I could start with a discussion of how I don’t understand how co-writers Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant could mastermind the hilarious Reno 911! yet blow it each time they work on a feature film (among other turkeys, they also wrote The Pacifier and Herbie Fully Loaded). But that’s already been done, both by myself and others. Then I thought maybe I could discuss Garant’s directorial prowess, which is so lacking it makes the Farrelly Bros. look like Orson Welles. But this type of movie typically isn’t the bastion of real directors, so why waste time on that?

Given that this is essentially a spoof of Enter the Dragon, I perhaps thought I could compare the two movies, but then I remembered this is a spoof that doesn’t work, so what would be the point? (Besides, Enter the Dragon itself is funnier than Balls of Fury.) I eventually got so desperate I thought I would rant about how early on the movie refers to Def Leppard as a supergroup, which is incorrect, as a supergroup is a musical act made up of members who’ve previously been (or still are) part of other already successful acts, but I didn’t want to come off as an anal jerk (although it’s probably too late for that). No, regardless of what I attempted, I simply have to break down and resign myself to putting it as succinctly as I can, which I will now do: Balls of Fury sucks.

I really have to wonder how Lennon and Garant convinced someone to finance this movie. I suppose maybe they have some clout after the success of Night at the Museum (another movie whose popularity confounds me), but I don’t see how anyone could have looked at this script and then pulled out the checkbook. (Not that the producers raised much money. The production looks so cash-strapped it could probably qualify for welfare.) The jokes don’t work at all (this isn’t a case of blowing things in the execution, but a combination of poor execution and awful writing), and the plot perfunctorily follows the same loser-makes-good formula that finally seems to be losing its luster for audiences.

To make matters worse, the structure of the story would lead you to believe Lennon and Garant have never even seen a movie, much less worked on several. It’s thirty minutes of setup, followed by forty-five minutes during which nothing happens, capped off with a climax that ends almost as soon as it begins (and where the hell did David Proval’s character come from?). Maybe the abrupt nature of the finale is supposed to be some sort of postmodern commentary on the bloated, endless nature of modern action flicks, but I doubt it. After all, you’re unlikely to find informed commentary of any kind in a movie so desperate it ends with a scene of the cast singing a rendition of “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”        

As I so often do with these movies, I allowed my nine-year-old nephew to watch Balls of Fury with me. He’s not exactly an arbiter of good taste (hell, he even laughed at Hot Rod, which has so much in common with this movie it almost makes me want to hide my head in the sand), but he’s grown up on a steady diet of junk, having spent much of his life watching the kind of bland, recycled nonsense the Disney Channel continues to pump out, which he only recently stopped watching because I kept ragging him about it.

Anyway, I know that even the most awful movies work for someone, and it really doesn’t take much to entertain a prepubescent boy, so I wanted to gauge his reaction. I think he laughed two or three times, and at the end informed me that he didn’t really like the movie, which is his way of saying it sucks. So there you have it.

Sticking to protocol, I’ll now list the only things preventing me from giving this a score of Zero (or perhaps even a negative number). First off, David Koechner has a small bit as a dinner theater MC who introduces the acts in the show with the help of a parrot. The sight of Koechner and the bird performing Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise” almost (almost) made me laugh. Maggie Q plays Fogler’s love interest (yeah, right), and she spends much of the movie with her legs (which are still impossibly long) and abs exposed. That’s good stuff. And Aisha Tyler plays Feng’s henchwoman, who spends most of the movie is a series of dresses that do their best to ensure her cleavage remains on prominent display. That’s more good stuff.

THE VIDEO

The 1.85:1/1080p transfer adequately showcases the movie’s no-frills cinematography. Darker scenes can be a bit murky and indistinct, and contrast runs a bit high, which unfortunately flattens the image a little too much. Bright interiors and exteriors can look good, and the more highly saturated colors (particular those in the bizarre getups worn by Walken) are nicely reproduced. All in all, it’s about average for a movie of this pedigree.

THE AUDIO

Universal has outfitted this disc with a lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, but you have to wonder why they even bothered. This is a very front-heavy mix; the only time the audio really moves beyond the center channel is for the occasional ball fly-by, and the surrounds only come to life once or twice for a bit of score bleed. Other than that it’s front and center for the unfunny dialogue, which is always intelligible, yet often has a flat, lifeless quality. English and French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 tracks are also included. English SDH and French subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The paltry extras kick off with a few deleted scenes (7 minutes). There’s nothing to them, and they don’t offer any laughs, so I have to wonder why they were cut, as they obviously fit in perfectly with the rest of the movie.

An alternate ending (2 minutes) is also included. It’s just as lame and unfunny as the one they did use.

Balls Out: The Making of Balls of Fury (14 minutes) is an EPK-style making-of featurette. Behind-the-scenes footage is mixed with talking-head interviews of the cast and crew trying to convince the viewer the movie is actually funny.

Under the Balls: The Life of a Ball Wrangler (5 minutes) is a one big (unfunny) in-joke of a featurette about Irina Voronina, the easy-on-the-eyes woman in charge of keeping track of the ping-pong balls used in the movie.

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I'll say it one more time: Balls of Fury sucks.