Mark Wahlberg’s New Amazon Action Movie ‘Balls Up’ Dominates Streaming

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I’m really excited about the new movie from the director of classics like Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal, and There’s Something About Mary! People might remember he even won an Oscar for Green Book a few years back. He’s back with a hilarious comedy, and honestly, the title couldn’t be more perfect. Critics seem to agree it’s fantastic, but even better, everyone at home is loving it! It just came out earlier this week and it’s already the most-watched thing on streaming.

The comedy Balls Up, directed by Peter Farrelly and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, stars Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser as marketing executives Brad and Elijah. They come up with a wild idea: sponsoring the World Cup with a full-coverage condom brand. When a drunken celebration in Brazil causes a huge international scandal, they’re forced to run from angry fans, criminals, and corrupt officials to save their jobs and their lives. It’s definitely not subtle – think outrageous and over-the-top humor.

The new series Balls Up, starring Benjamin Bratt, Eva De Dominici, Daniela Melchior, Molly Shannon, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Wahlberg, and Jack Hauser, has become a fast streaming success, topping charts worldwide and in the US. It’s quickly surpassed other shows like Crime 101, Mercy, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and Agent Zeta, leaving them far behind in viewership. And its popularity is significantly higher than expected.

Critics Hit ‘Balls Up’ Below the Belt

The new action comedy, Balls Up, isn’t getting good reviews – critics gave it a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences rated it even lower at 19%. However, despite the poor reception, the movie is currently the most-watched title, suggesting that reviews aren’t stopping people from tuning in.

Even when movies are terrible, it’s nice to find something to appreciate, but KKFI-FM declared Amazon Prime’s Balls Up completely unredeemable, giving it a 0/5 rating. Empire Magazine wasn’t much kinder, awarding it 1/5 stars and calling it a ‘disaster’ – a fitting title, they said.

Is ‘Balls Up’ the Ultimate Guilty Pleasure?

THR thought the movie Balls Up would have benefited from the high energy of someone like Jack Black or Jim Carrey. However, RogerEbert.com considered it a complete failure, giving it only one star. Some viewers admitted to enjoying the crude humor and found it to be a simple, mindless good time, but overall, audience reactions were overwhelmingly negative.

Viewers overwhelmingly disliked the film, with one calling it “absolute garbage” and another saying it was one of the worst movies they’d ever seen. Many criticized its predictable plot and the strange on-screen chemistry between Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser. Some even speculated that the movie was intentionally made poorly as a statement about the film industry.

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2026-04-17 19:29