It's nice to sometimes come across a senseless, wacky and out-of-the-ordinary movie fare that offers nothing but fun, laughter and hilarious situations. I am talking of Balls of Fury.

If not for a couple of famous names and faces like Christopher Walken and Maggie Q, I would have given this film a pass.

But like all armchair movie critics of little significance, I made a pit-stop at this cinema hall for a brief glimpse into the window of incredible laughs..

I wasn't disappointed. Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) is a ping-pong has-been who prefers to forget the good old days. One day, a FBI agent of equally dubious repute, Rodriguez (George Lopez) came a-visiting to recruit him to flush out a fiend who had eliminated Randy's dad with extreme prejudice.

From the moment Randy accepted the dangerous assignment, it was a roller coaster of laughs.

 Nobody in his right mind is expected to take the movie seriously but you will be pleased to know that there's a smattering of familiar faces popping up on the screen now and then; people like Jason Scott Lee and James Hong.

If you want to know who is James Hong, then you haven't been sitting in front of the TV long enough.

Mr Hong is that familiar looking chinaman who has appeared in countless TV shows over the decades. He's not particularly famous but his face is rather familiar in an insignificant way.

Maggie Q is sexy without being salacious or wicked. She's fun and has that kind of Eastern charm that most men, Oriental and Occidental, find rather attractive.

This 90-minute show probably wasn't a dramatic box office hit but I am sure it did make a commendable pile of cash at video rentals.

Most weekenders who have nothing better to do will rent this video on a lonely Saturday afternoon. I have caught this show in its re-run on Astro at least twice.

Each time, it came across as something like you want to view over and over again. Perhaps it's just me but I find some of the comedic plots too insane to ignore.

Christopher Walken was a small time tour de force back in the good old days. I was referring to the Deer Hunter that came out a generation ago.

These days, Walken find it personally satisfying to play roles in movies like Hairspray and Balls of Fury, and he's doing a good job at it too. Good for you, Walken!

You are in absolutely no danger of going into hysterics in praising this movie but you certainly won't want to watch it alone. See Balls of Fury who also have funny bones in their body.

Buy a couple of packets of pistachios, cashew nuts and macadamia buts and gallons of beverages and then turn on the DVD to see Balls of Fury.

Laughter is free. Laugh as if there's no tomorrow. For all of us, one day, tomorrow may never come. Think about it. Meanwhile, just laugh.

THERE was a time in Nicolas Cage's life when he was close to being a nobody. No doubt he was Francis Coppola's nephew but Cage wanted to make it in the tough acting world under his own steam, he did away with the family name Coppola and opted for Cage (I believe it was based on a Comic character).

Anyway, that is history now and Cage has come a long way. He's not the hottest actor in tinseltown right now but he has had his moments. And Ghost Rider is not one of them, to be sure (even though I liked it).

So after watching Quantum of Solace, I returned to the cinema to watch Bangkok Dangerous. There wasn't much in the way of advertisement about this show except it has Cage's face on the poster. But I like the world Bangkok on it. It sounded interesting.

With Cage, you never know what to expect because he has been known to work on a wide range of movies. Yes, the location of the film is Bangkok. Apart from that you will be hard put to name anybody familiar in it. There was one exception though - Charlie Young.

At first, I had mistaken her for a Korean actress but her face was so familiar that it haunted me for the duration of the film, until I finally got it. She was that Hong Kong actress who had acted with Andy Lau and a host of other Chinese actors.

Charlie hasn't been that consistent in her roles. She has been here and there but really didn't stand out like some others. Anyway, she served as a good distraction in Bangkok Dangerous, even though she didn't speak a single line of dialogue.

In a minor role as Cage's love interest, Charlie was a mute. Well, that helped to solve the problem of her speaking English. I suspect she wasn't that fluent in English. For that matter, she may have scored zero in English language.

Bangkok Dangerous, believe it or not, was better than Quantum of Solace. It is better than good but not excellent and probably won't garner any Oscar nomination.

During certain scenes, there was a clever play of hues that gave the movie the strength and tension it needed. I was pleasantly surprised and applauded directors Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang for their efforts in imparting a certain style to the movie that gave it its own personality.

The plot evolves around an assassin (Cage) who is contracted to eliminate four persons in Thailand. The first three weren't a problem because they were hoods anyway.

 The fourth one on his hit list was a headache because he turned out to be a good guy and because Joe (Cage) had fallen in love with Fon (Charlie), his priorities in life have changed somewhat.

Something he has forgotten in pursuing his chosen career with such fervour has suddenly awakened, and he no longer felt the same way about knocking off ordinary people anymore.

There are a couple of surprising turns throughout the movie which lent some much needed pathos to an otherwise ordinary movie fare. I particularly favour Joe's Thai sidekick. He was rather charming in a criminal sort of way.

This show would have gone down the tubes if Cage had not been the main character or if the directors had missed out on a few valuable pointers. But there are more pluses and minuses. That's quite a relief.

I wouldn't want Cage to star in a turkey of a movie. Cage afterall is one of my favourite actors. He looked gaunt in Bangkok Dangerous as he was in Ghost Rider. This guy needs to flesh out a bit more.

There have been more than a handful of movies that have their settings in Bangkok, known around the world as one of the most exciting cities in the world. There are some obvious reasons.

Violence is not intermittent in Bangkok Dangerous but rather splattered all over. It is not recommended that children under 15 be invited to view this show.

There are some graphically violent scenes which may be disturbing to the faint-hearted. But if you can stand Dark Knight, you can stomach Bangkok Dangerous.

Like I say before, this film, in my humble opinion, is better that Quantum of Solace. You can watch it at leisure and judge for yourself.

WHO could resist the temptation of watching the latest James Bond movie? I could. I have been doing it for years. I am not one of those diehard Bond fans.

Since Sean Connery "left M's Office", I am quite oblivious to the fact that there have been a series of Bonds gracing the screen over the decades. But recently, I yielded to temptation by walking into the cinema and watched Quantum of Solace.

I recalled reading in the newspaper that an overseas movie critic has said that unlike the previous Bond movies, Quantum of Solace was found wanting in the electronic gadgets category and a trifle shy in the sexy girls department.

After nearly two hours (106 minutes to be exact) of coming face to face with Daniel Craig, I found that comment to be true.

While Craig as the latest Bond is a very physical guy, there was a notable absence of Nasa-type electronic devices to impress the non-science guys like me. That's not like James Bond at all!

To compound the thorny and stereotyped issue, the Bond girls were very much less than sexy. Whoever heard of a James Bond movie that scores a low rating on girls?

That wouldn't be a British spy flick of Bond calibre. Olga Kurylenko who starred as Camille in Quantum of Solace is probably one of the least sexy Bond girls in recent decades.

Ogla came across as an Eurasian damsel, not exactly in distress. In fact, she gave Bond a run for the money as far as fights are concerned. She could even turn dangerous turns in a street car chase.

I caught that Hollywood One On One on Astro that showed Olga commenting how she trained for months on fighting techniques. Well, there was little of all that training on screen.

I guess when you have grown up on a steady diet of martial arts type actresses a la Hong Kong, anybody would come to expect much more from fighting women.

On that matter, just look at Michelle Yeoh. When she acted in those Hong Kong movie, she was more than a match for a lot of guys on the screen who were attacking her.

And she could really fight. In Hong Kong, either you stay really fighting fit or you take out a big insurance policy on physical injuries.

Most Bond girls would come across as "drop-dead gorgeous" or "beautiful but lethal". Olga was neither.

In fact, in one scene, the director deliberately exposed her back and reveal the burnt scars on her back. I guess the cinema colour wasn't that great because I thought she had a bad case of ringworm.

It was only when the movie progressed that I realised that those "spots" on her back were the result of a childhood tragedy that involved her family.

The plot in Quantum of Solace is a bit weak. We are made to understand that it is the continuation of Craig's first Bond outing in Casino Royale.

Bond's arch-nemesis Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) came across more as a psychopath than a ruthless villain. They really don't make Bond villains like they used to. These days, Bond villains looked like my benign next-door neighbour.

On the plus side, Quantum of Solace tried to make up for its shortfalls with lots of action.

 From start to finish, there is an endless stream of action scenes that involved Craig jumping from one window ledge to the next. That jumping scene reminded me of Jason Bourne in Bourne Supremacy.

Then there was that scene where one of Bond's paramour was killed and coated with black oil from head to toe. She was naked of course. It was reminiscent of Goldfinger when Sean Connery starred in it.

Director Marc Forster tried his best to make it a watchable Bond but I believed he tried a bit too hard and forgot the essence of Bond.

 All successful Bond movies must have that edge that defies explanation. It must have that sense of suspence and sexual tension that force all men to ogle at the girls with undesirable intentions.

Of course, there must be those special tools that make James Bond stand head and shoulders above the rest of the super spies.

So without further ado, I give Quantum of Solace a four out of 10 rating. But if you are Bond fanatic, you would probably find this film satisfactory without bursting a capilliary.

Go and watch Harry Potter. You will have more fun in that department.