"Blades of Glory" is funny enough, ha-ha, and all that. The problem is that it's a virtual replica of countless other comedies.
Think "Talladega Nights" combined with "Dodgeball" and "Kingpin" and you get the exact picture. It follows the same formula almost to the letter with the only difference being that the competitive world of ice skating is up for ridicule.
Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) are bitter rivals with extremely different styles of skating. Ferrell is all sweat, machismo and ridiculous sexual posturing while the effeminate Heder flutters about the rink like a dainty peacock. The two men get into a very public fight after jointly winning the gold medal at the Stockholm Winter Olympics and are banned from the sport for life as punishment.
Ferrell ends up hitting the bottle and doing ice skating shows for kids dressed as a giant chipmunk while Heder works in a sports store. Heder's ex-coach, the proverbial grizzly wise old man that always features in American sports movies, discovers a loophole in the sport's regulations which would allow for a same-sex couple in figure skating. He then persuades the rivals to skate together in the figures competition at the next Olympic Games, much to the derision of the rest of the world.
"Blades of Glory" does have some extremely funny moments and it's extremely enjoyable to watch. But you get the feeling that it was scripted on the back of a serviette over a quick lunch. All the usual elements are there, not least of which is the blatantly latent homoeroticism between the two male leads.
Ferrell and Heder start out loathing the sight of each other but are the best of buddies by the end of the film. Ferrell has done this sort of role so many times before that he's certainly got it down to a fine art. But you wish that the writers had been a little more ambitious and really gone for something a bit darker or more outrageous. As it is "Blades of Glory" is just one long, cheap and decidedly hollow laugh.
The joke 's and the problem is that it is the joke 's is really starting to wear a little thin. It's time for the talented group of comedians that effectively created this sort of parody to come up with something fresher and more exciting.
