Blades of Hilarity

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2008)

The Will Ferrell & Jon Heder 'odd couple' buddy comedy "Blades of Glory" pokes a lot of good-natured humor at straight-up masculinity with its hilarious pairing of two guys as figure skaters in a competitive sport traditionally dominated by male & female teams rather than a same sex twosome. Imagine the D.B. Sweeney & Moira Kelly romantic comedy "The Cutting Edge" (1992) with two dudes ice-skating in tandem instead of the usual male & female duo, and you've got an adequate idea about what to expect from co-directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon in their big-screen debut.
Speck and Gordon called the shots on two short comedy films, "Angry Boy" (1996) and "Culture" (1998), but they are best known for a number of Geico commercials that they have helmed along with the Super Bowl spot TV commercial 'Exaggerating Dad' for Emerald Nuts. Were it not for the brilliance of Ferrell and Heder in the lead roles, this soporific satire about figure-skating would amount to little more than a live-action spin on the venerable 1960s' cartoon series "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle," with real-life married couple Will Arnett & Amy Poehler cast as a villainous combo along the lines of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Although brothers Jeff and Craig Cox penned their screenplay based on an idea by Elizabeth Jean 'Busy' Philipps, "Blades of Glory" virtually replicates the plots of two earlier Ferrell hit comedies "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" (2004) and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (2006).
As super macho athlete Chazz Michael Michaels, Will Ferrell qualifies as the wild man of the skating rink. An alcoholic with a sex addiction dilemma, Chazz resembles a tall, flabby Jim Morrison, when he isn't espousing the politically incorrect mind-set of a drunken Neanderthal, picture the late comic genius John Belushi from either "Animal House" or "1941." When we first see him on the ice, Chazz sports a black Waylon Jennings' Stetson, dresses like a biker, and skates to hard-rocking strains of Billy Squire's 1980s' classic hit "The Stroke." Women swoon as Chazz skates past them, and they shower him with thongs and double-D bras. No sooner has the pelvic-thrusting Chazz strutted his he-man stuff than rival figure-skating champ Jimmy MacElroy (John Heder of "Napoleon Dynamite" and "The Benchwarmers") glides onto the ice to the melodic tunes of Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman. Slender, elegant, tasteful, with a hallo of blow-dried blond hair, Jimmy impersonates a graceful peacock, decked out in a powder-blue, spandex outfit, with a fluff of tail feathers sprouting from his rump. These guys cannot stand the sight of each other either on the ice or off the rink. Indeed, they hate each other with a passion. The recipients of a shared gold medal for men's singles at the Olympic World Wintersport Games, Chazz and Jimmy struggle to tolerate each other during the awards ceremony. Chazz's blend of raunchy cologne with his taco-meat smelling body odor prompts Jimmy to assault him. The two scuffle before an audience of millions while the judges gape in horror.
During their fisticuffs, they tip over a flaming candleholder that ignites the costume of a guy inside of a mascot suit. Commissioner Ebbers (the always funny William Daniels, who provided the voice of the car in the 1980s' TV show "Knight Rider") and a panel of real-life skaters, including Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Brian Boitano, and Nancy Kerrigan, summarily ban Chazz and Jimmy for life from figure-skating.
Not only does Jimmy lose his wealthy Donald Trump-style sponsor Darren MacElroy (William Fichtner of "Armageddon") who had discovered him in a Catholic orphanage and nurtured his figure-skating talent, but also his coach (Craig T. Nelson of "All The Right Moves") loses his job. Simultaneously, Chazz winds up skating in a children's ice show as a wizard, but he gets fired for boozing it up and puking inside of his costume. The only person who displays loyalty to a disgraced and fallen Jimmy is his male stalker Hector (Nick Swardson, better known as the male hooker Terry on "Reno 911"), who is under a restraining order to stay away from Jimmy. Hector, however, uncovers a loophole in the bylaws that allows Jimmy to resume his figure-skating career, but only as a participant in a doubles team. Yeah, you guessed it, Jimmy and Chazz team up at the behest of the coach who wants to give them another shot at stardom.
Despite some uneven pacing in the early parts of this over-the-top comedy, "Blades of Glory" serves up a plethora of sight gags and off-color jokes that won't be soon forgotten. Ferrell and Heder make an interesting pair in this definitely off-beat coupling.