a comedy working from used parts, never gets off the tracks of being just a ludicrously stupid farce

Rating: 7/10 (1 April 2007)

Blades of Glory is in part a spoof on the trashy romantic ice-skating drama The Cutting Edge, only this time playing off more-so on the homosexual subtexts of men in ice skating and in the utter lack of shame in Will Ferrell. It also co-stars Jon Heder, but aside from one or two big moments (like his scene in the toilet stall, or in some of his happy-go-lucky bits of dialog) it's really Ferrell's show here as comic impresario. Somehow, Ferrell's shtick doesn't get too tiresome, at least just yet, because of how much effort he puts into being a stupid louse. But a stupid louse that has a level of intelligence, because as one could see from past Ferrell movies his level of comic timing, with the emphasis on the immature and the inane in verbal terms as well as on top of the physical stuff (just seeing his body is a crack-up, especially here with his multiple tattoos), it somehow works for the end goal of the filmmakers. There's so many goofy bits here that one may overlook how anything story-wise has been used more times than I'd care to think about with sports movies- which is part of the point of the lampooning.
Ferrell and Heder are competitive ice-skaters, banned due to a fight during their equal gold-medal awards, and only get back into the competitions by going as a duo, which raises some obvious eyebrows. Then there's the whole rift between the dastardly brother/sister team (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler), the grueling training sessions where their trainer (an underrated comic actor in Craig T Nelson) prompts them on impossible North Korean skating moves of death, and a love interest in an assistant/sibling to the villains for Heder's character. Nothing to get excited about on that front, the actors then base everything for laughs on attitude (how the skaters do their "acts" during skating), facial expressions (Ferrell drunk during the kiddie ice-skating show), the go-for-broke gay jokes at the expense of the stars (an Aerosmith song has been rarely used to such an effect), and just other off-the-wall humor. It's all very obvious, but the wink and the nod doesn't disappoint. It might for some; by now Ferrell's been in more than one sport-spoof, and he's likely to be in more of them. But it also allows for him, as well as Heder and others, some ample comic opportunities. One of the funniest bits for my money is in a chase on skates between Arnet and Ferrell that leads them to the arena- but still on skates.
It's goofiness completely for the sake of the audience, and though it doesn't spark up really remarkable comedy moments like in Anchorman and Talladega Nights, it's good to take the edge off on a Sunday afternoon; it's the kind of comedy that will work best with a bunch of friends anticipating that within the PG-13 range anything goes.