Bolas em Pânico

Taxi. The Pacifier. Herbie Fully Loaded. Let's Go to Prison. Night at the Museum. If this list of movies is an accurate representation of your DVD collection, then my friends, you either have a young child in the house or a strange fetish for average-to-below average comedies. Or "absolutely dreadful" in the case of Jimmy Fallon's Taxi. *shudders* I'm still trying to erase memories of that steamer from my mind.

Other than being part of the aforementioned pathetically sad DVD collection, do you know what else each of these movies has in common? They're all written by Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, the duo who wrote, produced, and directed Balls of Fury. Are you trying to decide whether or not this is a film worthy of your time and money? Please let my above revelation stand as "enough said."

In all honesty, what can you expect when you take a poor man's Jack Black and give him the starring role in a poor man's Dodgeball? A little thing I like to refer to as "not much." Dan Fogler gives it the ol' college try, but perhaps the material is to blame for his mostly forgettable performance. He delivers a couple of laugh-out-loud moments, but by the time he's lip-synching to Def Leppard you'll be asking yourself, "So who's this guy, and why is he doing a bad karaoke impersonation of 'Jack Black Meets Sam Kinison'?"

I will give Balls of Fury three credits - 1) Maggie Q is adorable, 2) The film rightfully never takes itself too seriously, and 3) It's nowhere near as filthy as I expected. At the top of my notebook I wrote, "Balls/Genitalia References" and I was set to keep track. I just knew they were going to fly off the screen fast and furious, especially judging by the "a huge comedy with tiny balls" tagline. So I was quite shocked when the grand total was only one, and that one was merely Maggie Q's character disgustedly relaying an example of the comments she was forced to deal with from male players.

What more can I say about a film whose crowning achievement is, "Well, I didn't expect much, and it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, so whatever"? That certainly doesn't send you rushing to purchase a ticket, now does it? It'll be on TNT or TBS soon enough so just have patience and watch a few legitimately good comedies in the interim. There'll come a time when you're flipping channels, nothing else is on, and you'll cruise across this. You can decide then whether you want to sit through all of it. The end result will likely be a long email thanking me for saving you $8.

Before I commence, let me once again bring attention to my above "poor man's Dodgeball" quote. I overheard several disappointed people say, "I thought it'd be like Dodgeball." What's that? Yeah, they said it in unison, Wisenheimer. Now shut up. The consensus? It's not even close. So if that was the opinion you formed after watching the trailer then dismiss that notion immediately. It's an interesting concept that probably contains about ten minutes of solid comedic material.

What ultimately happens when you stretch that over an hour and a half? Unfortunately, the jokes suffer from what I like to call the "Kate Moss, Heather Mills McCartney, and post-2000 Muhammad Ali Syndrome." In other words, they're flat, lame, and they pack no punch. Let's see them put THAT on the DVD cover.

This has to be, quite possibly, the dumbest movie I have seen in a very, very long time.

However, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think there was a single moment in this film that purposely wanted any smidgen of intelligence whatsoever.

And, heck, the reason I went to see this movie was because I thought it looked funny. And, guess what? I laughed. I don't know if this will go into the treasury of greatest stupid movies ever made, but it did leave me with a smile on my face.

I think it was because it was ping-pong. Yes, I like a good game of ping-pong as much as the next person, but come on. It's ping-pong. Just try telling that to these characters. The fact that anyone could take so slight a game so seriously cracked me up.

And that's where this movie works.

It's pointless, silly, and down-right brain cell killing. But I found myself forgiving everyone because they were so good-hearted in waltzing around with their idiotic humor.

No, it will probably not be nominated for Best Picture. But as for dumb comedy goes, this nicely held its own.

This movie is by no means garbage as some have posted, nor is it a great movie. Think before you buy the ticket. If you walk in expecting a spoof about ping pong w/ a cast of completely 1 dimensional characters to be a 10/10 you must live a life full of disappointment. This movie is funny, and if you didn't find yourself laughing at it you are probably already dead or on the fast track to ulcers and a stress induced stroke by age 30. This is not the first movie that approached a ridiculous subject in such silly manner. Odds are if you hate movies that have done that in the past (ie: Dude, Where's My Car, Blades of Glory, Hot Rod, etc.) you are gonna hate this one as well. As it stands right now this movie has a 4.6 and that probably a little low due to people 1 staring it because they wanted the Saving Private Ryan of ping pong movies. This movie should probably get a rating in the 6.1-6.3 category. If you have a little time to kill, have already seen Super Bad, and want a good laugh go check it out. Otherwise wait till it comes out on DVD or just ignore it. As for those who have blasted it. Go blast a movie that actually supposed to be good and isn't as opposed to picking on the 90 lb. asthmatic kid of movies. This movie can't defend itself for being stupid because is supposed to be. If you couldn't tell that from the trailer, then odds are you haven't made it this far into my comment.

I went into the theater expecting almost nothing good coming out of it. I read the reviews- Washington Post, USA Today, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. I knew they were horrible and quite honestly, I thought I would hate the movie. But my friend wanted to go, and me having no life whatsoever, I agreed to join her.

I have to say, I should go into to more movies with such low expectations, because I really enjoyed it. Was the acting superior? No. Was the script well-written? No. But it was funny and Christopher Walken makes all things glorious, so all in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a Thursday night after an especially terrible day of work. The actors all seemed to realize that they weren't participating in a project that would make movie history and they all seemed OK with that. It was very much a movie done to simply enjoy the play on the word "balls" and in this particular case, it was forgivable.

Overall, don't go in expecting complete comedic genius and you just might find yourself laughing.

Not the greatest comedy of the summer, but it had its fair share of laughs. Some of the situations were pretty amusing and some of the lines were laugh-out-loud funny.

Christopher Walken seems to always make the best out of his roles, whatever he's given, he makes it his own. And this is no exception. The script wasn't rolling on the floor funny, but it had its moments. This would qualify as a good choice for a matinée-priced movie, I'd say.

As an aside, I don't know WHY ON EARTH that African American lady who played Christopher Walken's female henchman keeps getting roles (she played Jennifer Love Hewitt's antique shop partner for a while and stunk in that role too).