Blades of Glory

By this point most people who had planned on seeing “Blades of Glory,” Will Ferrell’s latest cinema outing, will most likely have gone. To any and all who planned on seeing it and did, my only recommendation is that you see it again. It’s to the unbelievers I address this review; for I was one of you and, upon seeing the movie, I saw the errors of my previous opinion.
Will Ferrell alone is reason enough to both draw in and drive away audiences. He has outrageous comic appeal, which can be seen by the success of his previous movies, with the odd exception of “Stranger Than Fiction” which was his best work to date.
The outrageousness of his comic appeal is what discourages many other people from seeing his movies at all. There are those, perhaps you, who believe that if you’ve seen one of his movies you’ve seen them all.
The charm of this movie is in the supporting cast and Ferrell’s costar, John Heder. I refuse to reference him by his first film, he’s long since overcome the image of moon boots and sweet moves.
Ferrell and Heder have a great onscreen chemistry even if they are playing through some of the most basic comedy clichés. Ferrell’s Chazz Michael Michaels is all about being a bad boy, and Heder’s Jimmy MacElroy is a goody two shoes, devoted to his adoring fans.
As any preview, and pretty much any poster featuring the two of them dressed in skin tight outfits and skates, will tell you, the movie is about two men who team up to be the first all male figure skating pair. They were rivals before, but upon tying for a gold medal they get into a brawl on the winners platform that results in both being banned from men’s singles figure skating.
They try to make it with regular jobs for a few years but all they know is skating. Some of Ferrell’s funniest moments are during this segment when Michaels performs, drunk, in a kiddy fantasy show on ice. MacElroy’s old trainer recognizes their potential and convinces them to work as a team in order to sidestep their bans and go for the gold once more.
Their only real competition is the brother/sister team of Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, played by real life husband and wife Will Arnett and Amy Pohler, who use the memory of their deceased parents to emotionally blackmail their sister Katie, The Office’s Jenna Fischer, into helping them plot their competitors’ downfall.
Even if it weren’t a comedy it would be a typical by-the-books sports movie, in other words unbearable. Fortunately for us it is a comedy and the writers/directors miss no opportunity to take a jab at the world of professional skating.
The jokes in the previews are funnier in the context of the film, and for once they didn’t use every punch line as a selling point, so the movie keeps us laughing instead of subconsciously checking off a list of lines and moments we knew were coming.
It’s not a great movie, as in Oscar-worthy, but it is a lot better than it looked like it was going to be, and even with the constant joke making we end up having enough of an emotional investment in the story to be happy when the protagonists finally put aside their differences and work together to win. If you haven’t seen it and want to, definitely go. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to, you should give it a chance because you might be pleasantly surprised. If you haven’t seen it, don’t want to, and are out there spreading foul reviews of it, please stop; nobody needs or likes a baseless opinion. Seriously though, go, bring some friends, comedy is more enjoyable in a group, and if nothing else, it’s worth it to hear Ferrell sing Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”

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