= 3 stars

Starring Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Jenna Fischer
Directed by Josh Gordon, Will Speck

Amazon Link

I’m glad I waited to rent Blades Of Glory. While I laughed at some parts, I was mostly uninvolved, and here’s also an odd, mocking homo-eroticism that I didn’t find as funny as the makers obviously did.

I’ll get that characteristic out of the way since it’s psychologically bizarre. Many of the movie’s jokes have to do with straight men pretending things aren’t gay when they suggest otherwise. Supposedly, manly men run in fear when confronted by any involvement with competitive ice skating. If straight men squirming at the thought of being mistaken for gay makes you laugh, you may find Blades Of Glory hilarious.

Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy McElroy (Jon Heder) are hetero males who become a figure skating pair in order to get around a skating league ban. Chazz has an amped-up machoness, resembling Jim Morrison on ice and claiming sex addiction. This seems largely a defensive response. That’s sort of funny, but I couldn’t help feeling that the basis for this humor is loosely veiled homophobia.

The parts I did find funny is how Ferrell, as usual, sinks so much into this odd character to where he’s in another state of mind - strange touches like his twelve thousand dollar hairbrush, or standing around with no shirt, displaying a pudgy physique yet talking about how sexy he is. They walk into the coach’s house and Ferrel asks Jimmy if he’s the rug doctor, then something random about Eskimos and the night being a dark place. Huh? Yeah, I laughed.

Heder also gets a pass as he’s not completely doing Napoleon Dynamite. He has the wussy boy thing down, and a scene where he’s running away holding balloons yelling “evil!” and another where he has to eat toilet paper both had me chuckling for no good reason.

Jenna Fischer plays Heder’s love interest. She’s cute but in an attempt to not be as flamboyant as everyone else, plays the straight man (no pun intended) to detriment. It’s as if she’s in another, more serious movie altogether.

Blades Of Glory is also quite predictable. The preening male rivalry is not unlike Zoolander - the duo must put their differences aside and work together to win (remember The Cutting Edge?) - and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by revealing that they eventually do.

Blades Of Glory is decent rental if you find either men afraid of looking gay or Will Ferrell preening amusing. If neither sounds funny, skip it, because that’s all there is.

IMDB: Blades Of Glory
Wikipedia: Blades Of Glory
Rotten Tomatoes: Blades Of Glory 69%

Categories: 3 Star Movies, Movies :: Tags: 3 stars, Blades Of Glory, Comedy, Jenna Fischer, Jon Heder, Josh Gordon, Will Ferrell, Will Speck :: Trackback URL
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