'Balls of Fury' review

A disgraced former child prodigy Ping Pong player is called upon by the FBI to use his skills to infiltrate the headquarters of a possible criminal madman who has a thing for the game. It's like 'Enter the Dragon' but with Ping Pong.

I believe this was meant to be a comedy but there was so little comedic material that it's hard to tell. There are a number of sequences clearly meant to be funny that are anything but funny. Generally funny people (George Lopez, Diedrich Bader) are cast in the film and are rarely humorous. The film is played very straight, which would not necessarily be a problem, but becomes so during the film as nothing counterpoints the 'serious' to be funny. I think the logic was that they'd have everything be serious so that it would make Christopher Walken's wackiness that much more wacky. If so, it didn't work. When the funniest part of the movie is the outtakes during the end credits, there's a problem. It felt like a neutered version of a wacky movie where all the punchlines had been removed.

Some of the humor is just ill conceived. Much of it falls into what I consider the 'Look see!' type of humor as in 'Look see! An oriental mansion in the middle of Central America. Isn't that funny?' In and of itself, no, not really. It's an amusing concept but, of itself, its not funny. There's the 'Look see he's blind!' jokes that are funny when James Wong works the material to the joke's advantage but more often than not I got the impression there was nothing to work with. There's also the 'look see they're gay!' jokes that never get funny and actually grow more and more annoying as they pile up.

Is it because it's a PG-13 film? Did the creators feel constrained by trying to hit a specific rating? I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like it but it's possible.

There are a few humorous moments in the film. It wasn't completely without amusement for me but, on the whole, it just wasn't funny. Not to me anyway.

Strong recommendation to avoid.