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Mark Wahlberg’s 2026 Raunchy New Movie Is Getting Obliterated by Critics

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2025 was a tough year for Mark Wahlberg, who faced the wrath of critics not once, not twice, but three times. In late January, Wahlberg reteamed with director Mel Gibson in the action thriller Flight Risk, which earned not just poor reviews but an underwhelming theatrical run. Then came the heist thriller Play Dirty, a Prime Video original, which critics tore apart in October. Finally, Wahlberg reunited with Michelle Monaghan for the action sequel, The Family Plan 2, which was dubbed “forgettable” by many.

So, with that in mind, Wahlberg will be hoping he can bounce back in his first feature release of 2026: Balls Up. A sports comedy made in anticipation of this year’s FIFA World Cup, this is the latest effort from Dumb and Dumber director Peter Farrelly, and stars Wahlberg alongside the likes of Paul Walter Hauser and Borat himself, Sacha Baron Cohen. So has the film earned the acclaim of critics?

Sadly, Balls Up marks a fourth flop in a row on Rotten Tomatoes for Marky Mark, earning just 30% from critics and 27% from audiences. “The movie of the greenlight meeting would be more interesting than the movie,” said one critic, with another writing, “As far as titles go, Balls Up is about right. This is a disaster.” A synopsis for the film reads:

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“In this raunchy, over-the-top comedy, marketing executives Brad (Mark Wahlberg) and Elijah (Paul Walter Hauser) go ‘balls out’” and pitch a bold full‑coverage condom sponsorship with the World Cup. After their drunken celebration in Brazil sparks a global scandal, they must outrun furious fans, criminals, and power-hungry officials to salvage their careers and make it home alive.”































































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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

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🔧John McClane

🎭Ethan Hunt

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01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.





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02

You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





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03

You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.





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04

The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.





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05

How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





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06

Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.





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07

Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.





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08

What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.





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09

Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.





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10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.





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Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

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Rambo

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Indiana Jones

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

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John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

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Ethan Hunt

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

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What Is Mark Wahlberg’s Next Movie?

Following Balls Up, Wahlberg will be heading back to his other favorite genre, the crime thriller. In the upcoming Paramount project, By Any Means, Wahlberg will star alongside Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Giancarlo Esposito in a pulse-racing period piece, which will also feature Nicole Beharie, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas, and Ethan Embry. Set to debut in theaters on Labor Day, September 4, a synopsis for the movie reads:

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“Set against the backdrop of 1996 Mississippi and loosely based on true events, the manhunt thriller follows a volatile partnership between a hardened mafia hitman and a young black FBI agent as they are forced into an uneasy alliance to track down those responsible for the killing of civil rights leaders — uncovering a conspiracy that tests the limits of justice, loyalty, and survival.”

Balls Up is streaming on Prime Video. Stay tuned for more stories.


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Release Date
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April 15, 2026

Runtime

104 minutes

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Director

Peter Farrelly

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