Covers it's comedic niche with about as little effort as possible but still provides a few memorable laughs

Rating: 5/10 (30 March 2007)

Not being a huge fan of Will Ferrell's overdone antics, my expectations were at a humbled minimum upon viewing the latest showcase for his repetitious, though always smart comedic offerings. Surprisingly, the bland and undercooked laugher dealing with two silly men figure skating as a pair, barely managed to appease even my lowest predictions. Playing out like yet another halfway developed, openly lazy, SNL-sketch-launched-to-big-screen, the little laughter Ferrell can muster does not save the majority of lifeless chuckles that miss the humor mark. Often I found myself dispelling air in a way that sort of prompts the psyche for belly laughs, but hardly being able to follow through. All these insincere, mere formalities of dispirited chuckling may have indicated a uniform cleverness throughout the lame plot's dialog, but rarely rises to the level of hilarity a good comedy is supposed to provide. Only near the end, in the actual skating routines does the humor excel at invigorating the crowd, while a majority of the scenes beforehand demonstrate an under-rehearsed duo largely forsaking any synergy the script had called for between the two flamboyant leads.
Credit the continual and baffling casting of Jon Heder in these lead comedic roles as one of the chief reasons much of the laughter rarely lifts off the ground. Ever since landing the iconic role in Napolean Dynamite, to which he played to a tee, producers have made the mistake in thinking Heder can actually act outside of the narrow dork he so readily defined in that indie smash hit, and every big budget comedy that has cast him in a primary role since has suffered for it. While not necessarily a poor casting choice to have him playing the uber-fairy skater Jimmy MacElroy, Heder simply cannot rise above his trite delivery to provide any sort of edgy humor in any scenes, that responsibility falls squarely on Mr. Will.
Though admirably keeping any witty vulgarity flowing naturally as the macho, sex-addicted, drug-using figure skater, Ferrell's character feels too recycled from random other characters he's portrayed to create much of a genuine funniness, a far-cry from his more involved work with partner Adam Mckay (the more creatively average Talladega Nights). In the end the king of offbeat one liners and the charisma-less ultra dork are oddly enough upstaged by relative newcomer and gifted sideman Nick Swardson in an inspired and perceptive take on the stalking psychopath, demonstrating a hunger for comedic delivery that is all but noticeable throughout the majority of mediocrity.