Ping-pong comedy bounces from immaturity to inanity

"Balls of Fury"

1½ stars

out of four

Opened Wednesday

Starring As

Dan Fogler Randy Daytona

Christopher Walken Feng

George Lopez Rodriguez

Maggie Q Maggie

James Hong Master Wong

Written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. Produced by Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber, Jonathan Glickman and Thomas Lennon. Directed by Robert Ben Garant. A Rogue Pictures release. Rated PG-13 (language, sex-related humor). Running time: 90 minutes.

As far as deliberately inane and stupid comedies go, the sports/James Bond/martial-arts parody "Balls of Fury" doesn't remotely measure up to the insanely fun and juvenile "Hot Rod."

But it sure improves on that whiff of celluloid flatulence "Reno 911: Miami," the last wannabe comedy from the director/writer team of Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon.

"Balls of Fury" gleefully plunges into its adolescent mind-set where sexy, kung-fuing babes instantly fall for the geekiest guy in the room, and there can't be a groaner chunk of dialogue or sight gag too infantile or obvious.

In 1988, young Randy Daytona reigns as the world's supreme ping-pong player. Then comes that fateful match when he trips, loses the game and causes his father (Robert Patrick) to be killed by a notorious Chinese crime lord named Feng.

Nineteen years later, Randy (Dan Fogler) has grown into a bloated slob with a mop of hair and ridiculous TV "Star Trek" sideburns on steroids. He now ekes out a living entertaining bored audiences with ping-pong tricks.

That's where FBI Agent Rodriguez (George Lopez) finds Randy and enlists his aid in capturing the elusive Feng. If Randy can get invited to Feng's secret ping-pong tournament, the FBI has a shot at apprehending him.

But first, Randy goes through the obligatory training montage, coached by the blind Master Wong (78-year-old James Hong), who dusts off every old Mr. Miyagi cliché in getting his protégé ready for the match.

"You don't win ping-pong matches for trophies," Master Wong says, "but for cold, hard cash and cheap, ugly women."

Master Wong has a nice niece in Maggie (Maggie Q), a chop-socking babe who can ping any man's pong as well as rip his head off. As Randy observes, "That gives new meaning to 'wax off.'"

See what I mean about no joke being too low?

Half of "Balls of Fury" passes by before we finally see Feng, the villainous ping-pong master played by Christopher Walken as a transvestite version of Gary Oldman's Dracula in the Francis Ford Coppola movie.

"I bid you toodles," Feng says, as if to cement the Dracula connection.

"Balls of Fury" had potential as a genre parody, but Garant and Lennon employ such a scattershot approach to the comedy that it hits only once for every four misses.

And what do the filmmakers have against Disney? Disneyland becomes a running, sneering joke in this movie. So does Disney World.

Diedrich Bader pops in as one of Feng's concubines of pleasure and says, "If I knew I was going to be a sex slave, I never would have gone to that audition in Orlando!"