Ferrell and Heder take on
skating in ‘Blades of Glory’

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

He’s been an elf, an anchorman and a race car driver. One might conclude that Will Ferrell’s roles haven’t required a whole lot of range with the exception of last year’s Stranger than Fiction. Joined by Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), Ferrell takes on figure skating in Blades of Glory.
Movies where Ferrell plays some outrageous incarnation of a character have made over $100 million at the box office, and movies where he is more of a regular guy, like Stranger than Fiction, Kicking and Screaming and Bewitched, haven’t done nearly as well.
While it is not exactly gut-busting funny, Blades of Glory is a decent comedy. Without Ferrell’s portrayal of over-the-top skater Chazz Michael Michaels, this movie would have been completely unwatchable.
Heder’s presence isn’t enough, and he has yet to make me think of him as anything other than Napoleon Dynamite. He hasn’t quite been able to shake that persona even after trying his hand in other roles in The Benchwarmers and School for Scoundrels.
Will Blades of Glory make you want to lace up your skates and hit the ice? Probably not. Will you learn the ins and outs of competitive figure skating? Again, the answer is no, but you will have some fun watching Ferrell and Heder pretend to be pro skaters.
Heder plays Jimmy MacElroy, a slightly feminine young man, engineered to ice skate since being adopted as a child. Jimmy’s archrival is Chazz (Ferrell), a cocky, sex-crazed skater. At the world championships, both Jimmy and Chazz are awarded the gold medal causing a big fight between them. They are both banned from competitive figure skating for the rest of their lives.
For three years, they each go their separate ways in unsatisfying jobs. Chazz becomes a drunk while skating in a children’s show, and Jimmy is berated while working as a salesman.
When a loophole is found in the competitive skating rules, Jimmy realizes that he can compete again with a partner. Of course, the only adequate partner Jimmy can find is Chazz. Thus, we have the world’s first same-sex pair skating team. With the help of Coach (played by who else, but Craig T. Nelson), Jimmy and Chazz go from being rivals to buddies and ready to go for the gold.
Their partnering takes the skating world by storm and of course they have some rivals — the brother, sister team of Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler).
Ferrell and Heder play nicely off each other, with the character of Jimmy being the punch line for most of the jokes.
As expected, with two men skating with one another, there are some homosexual allusions, namely for the more feminine Jimmy. However, Jimmy is given a love interest, Katie (Jenna Fischer, fans of The Office know her as Pam).
Blades of Glory is the first feature film directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, who were nominated for an Oscar for their short live-action film Culture in 1998. Blades of Glory has somewhat of a Zoolander and Dodgeball vibe, even though it does follow the formula of Anchorman and Talladega Nights with characters that fall from the top only to rise again. The similarities to Zoolander and Dodgeball may be due to Ben Stiller, who has a producer credit.
Blades of Glory won’t be the most memorable films of either Ferrell or Heder’s careers, especially since this type of movie has been done before. And if you think this is Ferrell’s last sports comedy, think again. He’s playing a basketball player in Semi-Pro, scheduled for a 2008 release.
Movie Grade: B