Blades of Glory centers on toothy golden-boy Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder, above center), a technically proficient but socially sheltered champion figure skater rigorously groomed for success since childhood. Boozy bad boy Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) is his polar opposite — a self-described “ice-devouring sex tornado” who relies on instinct and on-ice improvisation. When a tie at the World Championships erupts into an embarrassing, medal-stand brawl in front of a horrified crowd, both Jimmy and Chazz are stripped of their awards and barred from their sport. Years later, Jimmy's coach encourages them to exploit a loophole and compete together as the first male/male pair in the history of figure skating. Hungry for laurels, the duo agrees.

Fitfully amusing but indefatigable, Blades of Glory doesn't touch the anarchic highs of the inspired Talladega Nights, but there's some pleasantly inspired riffing from Ferrell, and the movie's early story-beat, sitcom-style repartee is actually pretty solid, before it descends into only half-sketched macro arcs. Relying on Ferrell’s trademark mock intensity and man-child ignorance, the movie wraps its plot around comfortable clichés of warped competition found most recently in fellow insistently silly sports flicks like Dodgeball, Heder's The Benchwarmers and Ferrell’s Kicking and Screaming.

Oh, and for the record, while Blades of Glory does wring plenty of laughs from the tension of its male-male pairing, it doesn't really succumb to the tag of "New Homophobia" comedy that's being bandied about by some writers. (That sentiment is actually much more prevalent in this spring's Wild Hogs.) For the full, albeit somewhat canted and analytical review, from FilmStew, click here.

        

 

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