BLADES OF GLORY
Boris And Natasha, Meet (Mr.) Torvill and Mr. Dean
The Popcorn Reel Movie Review: "Blades Of Glory"
By Omar P.L. Moore/April 1, 2007
Ice Ice Crazy: Will Ferrell (left) as Chazz Michael Michaels and
Jon Heder as Jimmy MacElroy in "Blades Of Glory", which opened last Friday.
(Photo: Suzanne Hanover/Paramount Pictures)
The Rivalry: Straz Van Waldenberg (Will Arnett) and Fairchild Van
Waldenberg (Amy Poehler) versus Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) and Chazz Michael
Michaels (Will Ferrell, who mocks the salute of John Carlos from the Summer
Olympics in 1968?) with Coach (Craig T. Nelson), in "Blades Of Glory."
(First photo: Suzanne Hanover/Paramount Pictures; second photo: Melinda Sue
Gordon/Paramount Pictures)
Want triple axels, lutzses and toe loops? Want
laughs? Lots of laughs? You get all of these welcome pleasures in
"Blades Of Glory", the latest Will Ferrell comedy that opened in the U.S. and
Canada two days ago.
You also get 93 minutes of insanity, hilarity and stupidity as Ferrell and Jon
Heder (of "Napoleon Dynamite") team up as Chazz Michael Michaels and Jimmy
MacElroy respectively, the world's first figure-skating men's pair on ice.
Formerly bitter solo rival ice skating champions whose currency in flamboyancy
is as great as their economy of decorum, they aim to defeat their ice rivals the
Van Waldenbergs, a figure-skating brother and sister pair who are perennial
champions, at Montreal's World Games. As played mischievously by Will
Arnett and Amy Poehler, the Van Waldenbergs are the Boris and Natasha to Heder's
Torvill and Ferrell's Dean, and are as much at home in this film as the two lead
characters are. Arnett and Poehler up the camp and the devious to higher
levels than expected and they stand up well to the antics of Ferrell and Heder,
who have good comic chemistry in their own right.
Mr. Ferrell's drunken, sex-addicted Chazz and Mr. Heder's effeminate Jimmy (with
his one deeply-troubled stalker fan) have abundant fun which is tempered only by
the presence of their coach (Craig T. Nelson), who is funny even when he doesn't
mean to be. Jimmy also has the affections of Katie Van Waldenberg (Jenna
Fischer) on his mind, even though Katie is constantly being manipulated by the
guilt trips of her older siblings. When you add cameos from many of the
top American figure skaters past and present you have mayhem and madness to the
utmost. In particular, former skating world champion Scott Hamilton and
HBO Sports boxing commentator Jim Lampley are near sublime in some moments of
"Blades Of Glory", which with its send-up of movies and gay panic and paranoia,
is a hilarious, laugh-a-minute spectacle. Riotous, rambunctious and racy,
"Blades Of Glory" is more consistently funny than Mr. Ferrell's last all-out
comedy "Talladega Nights" and the degree of physical comedy here is also
greater.
If you want to see the Siegfried and Roy of Ice Capades, the Michael Flatleys of
the Riverdance (on ice), then you've come to the right, senseless, idiotic,
story-less place to get all the laughing gas you'll need for two movies.
"Blades Of Glory", which opened on March 30 in the U.S. and
Canada, is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language, a comic violent
image, and some drug references. The film also stars William Fichtner,
among others. The film is written by Jeff Cox & Craig Cox and John
Altschuler & Dave Krinsky, and directed by Will Speck & Josh Gordon. Ben
Stiller is one of its three producers. The film's duration is one hour and
33 minutes.
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2007.
All Rights Reserved.