In the wacky world of sports comedies, there's been a push to try to find more absurd sports to base movies on. Lately, we've seen dodgeball, Mexican wrestling, auto racing, figure skating and now pingpong. Nobody can deny the box office success of those predecessors and "Balls of Fury" hopes to follow suit.

In "Balls of Fury," a former Olympic ping pong athlete (Dan Fogler) is stuck doing tricks with pingpong balls as part of a side show in Vegas. An FBI agent (George Lopez) tracks him down and explains that they need Randy to come out of retirement to try to track down one of FBI's most wanted men, who happens to hold a invitation-only pingpong tournament with other criminals. Randy is wary at first but decides to go along on the journey and ends up being re-taught by Master Wong (James Hong), a blind man in Chinatown. He hopes to obtain an invitation to this elusive tournament and help the agent track down the ring leader, Feng (Christopher Walken).

Despite all of the various quasi-sports that mentioned earlier, all of these movies seem to owe a great debt of gratitude to "Happy Gilmore." The basic plot points are all similar as they involve someone who resists the idea of going along the journey, then after he agrees he goes through a wacky training session before he is forced to face off against his rival. The only difference between all of these movies and "Happy Gilmore" is that it was much funnier and more original at the time. Since this plot has been recycled so many times with different sports, it grows tiresome to watch.

That's not to say that this movie doesn't evoke a few laughs along the way. Fogler is an entertaining leading man, stuck in a movie that doesn't make full use of his talents. His stage presence is a combination of Will Ferrell and John Belushi. High compliments, indeed, for a man making his first comedic starring role.

This is a movie that can easily fit alongside other similar movies in your collection, if you are a fan of "Dodgeball," "Nacho Libre" or "Talladega Nights." If you happened to catch those movies, this one is probably even less grounded in reality. But it will provide you with the same entertainment that those films did. However, for the general public, that's not very much entertainment at all unfortunately.

'Balls of Fury'

Starring: Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken

Director: Ben Garant

Run time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Rated: PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor, language

Now playing at: College Square, Crossroads 12, Waverly Palace Theatre

2 out of 5 stars