Sept. 12, 2007 — Let's see. "Balls of Fury" stars Christopher Walken as a costume-obsessed evil ping-pong kingpin; it delights in offensive odor comedy; it has two spiffy Lady Speed Stick jokes, along with humor about blindness and groin-bashing.
Let's stop right here. There simply must be a reason — other than observing Walken's newest incarnation — to leave the comfort of home for an ice-cold theater seat. Oh yes, a look at the inside workings of major league ping-pong.
The movie blurb promises a look at the "unsanctioned, underground and unhinged world of extreme ping-pong; the competition is brutal and the stakes are deadly." The first time "on screen."
Oh, oh. Gone are the rec rooms of yesteryear, with the innocent boing of ping-pong balls bopping back and forth of a summer afternoon. Who knew what potential evil lurked behind the little white spheres?
"Thus," says Roger Ebert, "it was with great eagerness that I attended 'Balls of Fury,' which is, I believe, the first movie combining ping-pong and kung-fu and co-starring Maggie Q. How many could there be?"
So far, just one. Former professional ping-pong phenom Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) has fallen on hard times. He is discovered in a lackluster Las Vegas club act by FBI agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez), who urges him to get back into training so he can compete undercover in an illegal global ping-pong and martial-arts tournament run by the evil criminal weapons dealer Mr. Feng — none other, of course, than the ever-versatile Walken.
"Walken plays the role with makeup that makes him look Asian, and clothes that look recycled from the wallpaper in a Chinese restaurant," Ebert says.
Well, Daytona acquiesces and gets back in ping-pong shape under the tutelage of Blind Master Wong (James Hong) and his niece, Maggie Q of "Mission: Impossible II" fame. A blind master? Yup.
Alex Markerson in Eonline.com says, "This ping-pong-themed spoof of low-budget spy thrillers and martial-arts punchfests gets a few wicked shots in … but too often finds itself without a paddle."
Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly — who gives it an F compared to Ebert's B-minus — says,"It's meant to be a hoot that Walken showed up and mumbled his lines as if he didn't know the camera was on."
The rules of the climactic tournament remain obscure, as does its raison d'etre. "Don’t expect me to explain the rules and purposes of the tournament, if it has any," Ebert says. "I was preoccupied with observing the sheer absurdity of everything on the screen."
And that may be reason enough to leave the comfort of home. We can all use a good dose of absurdity, and movie popcorn is always better than at home. It just is.
"Balls of Fury" runs and hour and a half and is rated PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor and for language. It is directed by Robert Ben Garant.
The movie starts Thursday at Market Square East.
