Movie review--Blades of Glory

Blades of Glory is no foreign-language art-house flick about Rwandan refugees. It isn’t even an indie documentary about the exclusive Buenos Aires club scene. It’s a delightfully dumb hour and a half of mindless fun. If you’ve had a rough week (or even if you haven’t), Blades of Glory is a great way to unwind. No thinking required.

Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) plays Jimmy MacElroy, a figure skating prodigy who was adopted at the age of four by an athletics impresario (the always-marvelous William Fichtner). Twenty-two years later, he is a superstar of men’s figure skating, world famous for his grace on the ice—especially his signature move, “The Galloping Peacock.” His archrival is Chazz Michael Michaels (played by Will Ferrell), a hard-rocking wild man who calls himself “sex on ice” and who got his start in Detroit’s underground sewer skating scene.

After a tie for the gold at the World Wintersport Games, Chazz and Jimmy engage in some mutual trash-talking that escalates into a major debacle resulting in both skaters being banned from men’s figure skating for life. But, as a deranged fan (Nick Swardson, Reno 911!) eventually points out, they haven’t been banned from pairs skating. That’s where the silliness becomes insanity—in a good way, of course—as Chazz and Jimmy lay their differences aside to resurrect their shattered careers by becoming the first male-male team in the history of pairs figure skating.

Blades of Glory doesn’t just, er, skate by on a funny premise. (Sorry.) It is peopled with wonderful comedians and character actors in quirky roles. Craig T. Nelson (TV’s Coach) re-enters familiar territory to play a character known only as “Coach.” Coach pushes Chazz and Jimmy to the very frontiers of their sport, teaching them a move called the Iron Lotus. At least one of the skaters crazy enough to attempt this daring trick met a sudden—and hilariously gruesome—demise, the revelation of which is one of the movie’s funniest moments.

Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live), who are married in real life, play twin skating duo Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, whose evil machinations to defeat Chazz and Jimmy are so deliciously over-the-top, they might as well grow handlebar mustaches and start tying people to railroad tracks. On the opposite end of the good-evil spectrum is their younger sister Katie (The Office’s Jenna Fischer), a goody-goody naïf whom Stranz and Fairchild emotionally manipulate into participating in their diabolical schemes.

Fischer, despite her dowdy appearance on The Office, is adorably fetching as Katie. She’s also funny, and participates in what might very well be the most painfully awkward kiss ever captured on film.

Ferrell and Heder may not be the most obvious pairing—Ferrell can do no wrong at the box office, while Heder has had a hard time ditching his Napoleon Dynamite image—but they play off each other perfectly in Blades of Glory. Will Ferrell can pull off hysterically zany comedy without ever resorting to Jim Carrey-style hamming. And Jon Heder’s timing and charm in Blades of Glory prove that he’s no one-trick pony. There’s more to him than Napoleon Dynamite.

It is pointless to attempt to engage in any serious criticism of Blades of Glory. There is nothing serious about this movie. It isn’t trying to change the world, win Academy Awards, or make a statement. It’s just a movie that will make you laugh—a lot. But in my opinion, that’s pretty important, too.