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BLADES OF GLORY Send This Review to a Friend
This is a high concept, lowbrow comedy, and I can imagine what a one-sentence pitch might have been like: Two hostile figure ice skaters, banned from competition for their unruly behavior, find a loophole that allows them to return as the first male-male team, with chief rivals trying to sabotage them. Throw in Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as the stars and the project is off and running as “Blades of Glory,” which is silly stuff but frequently very funny with its ice rink hi-jinks, crotch-accented positions and some sexcapades tossed into the plot.
Ferrell plays Chazz Michael Michaels, the brassy, sex-hungry one, with Heder as Jimmy MacElroy the cute one who was a skating prodigy discovered and adopted in childhood. When they ultimately team, they are goaded to try a super dangerous move nobody has ever completed successfully before. When a Korean couple tried it, a head was lopped off by a blade. This flashback information heightens the suspense when Chazz and Jimmy attempt the spectacular whirling move, and the close-up of the result provides one of the film’s funnier moments.
Will Arnette and Amy Poehler play the Van Waldenberg brother-sister team who attempt to derail the stars. They prod their sister Katie, played by Jenna Fischer, to throw herself sexually at Chazz to anger the romantically smitten Jimmy and break up the team. Along the way, the screenwriters (four of them are credited) toss in such diversions as a confessional for sex addicts a la AA.
But co-directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon keep their eyes on the main event, the craziness on ice that make a shambles of figure skating. It is understandable why the slapstick laden film comedy opened as a box office hit. A Paramount Pictures release.
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