Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. That new animation in the upper left corner of your screen right now... that scares me so much. You do realize that Harry spends his days and nights planning his wedding and, at the same time, planning various homoerotic animations depicting him and me. This is why I can’t move to Austin. If I do, I know he’s gonna want sex on a regular basis, and I... ... oh, but you don’t care about all this personal stuff. You just want to know if BLADES OF GLORY is funny. Yeah, me, too. So, DarthEnder... is it?
Hi guys, Here is another review for you. I saw Blades of Glory last night at the AMC River East in Chicago . I am not sure how to describe Blades of Glory. Obviously, this movie is dumb on every level from the concept to the execution. Should this be a knock against the movie? Probably not. This is a movie featuring Will Ferrell as a male figure skater. Disregarding how stupid this movie’s premise is, I did consistently laugh throughout the short running time of about 1 hr 25 min or so (which still felt a little long). Jon Heder’s character (Jimmy) is an orphan engineered to become the worlds greatest male figure skater (think Ivan Drago in Rocky IV) while Will Ferrell’s character (Chazz Michaels Michael) is more of a rock star badass on skates. When the movie begins we get kind of a recap on Jimmy’s and Chazz’s life similar to what was done for Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in Zoolander (but not as funny). Actually, Blades has a lot in common with Zoolander and Dodgeball. Moving on, we jump right into Olympic competition and get to see just how good Jimmy and Chazz are at figure skating. Thankfully, cgi was clearly used to make it look like Ferrell and Heder were actually doing the crazy skating moves instead of cutting to their feet or something. Granted the cgi is really shitty and blurry, but it kind of makes it more fun. Soon Jimmy and Chazz are booted from the professional sport of male modeling, sorry male figure skating, after fighting at the Olympic awards ceremony. As you can gleam from the trailers both skaters hit rock bottom and decide to team up to get back into competition. The rock bottom scenes do provide some good laughs with Chazz performing as a wizard in a shoddy children’s skating show. Ferrell shines during these scenes as a womanizing drunk. The camera does a couple of close ups to Ferrell’s face when in costume and drunk and it is hilarious. The audience was rolling on the floor during these scenes. Once Chazz and Jimmy start training together, Ferrell and Heder get their chance to really work off of each other comedically. Heder is never really given anything funny to do or say, but Ferrell is there to consistently provide hilarious one liners. I doubt Ferrell was given a script because ever line he had was classic Ferrell a la Anchorman. He is so over the top as a manly male figure skater it is just hilarious. Most of the humor comes from him mocking Heder’s more “feminine” qualities. As soon as their fighting is about to get stale, their relationship switches and they become good friends (just like Zoolander). One of my favorite scenes is when Chazz and Jimmy are having breakfast and Chazz provides Jimmy with advice on dating woman. It is about this time that Chazz and Jimmy have made it back to the Olympics and are competing against the world’s top figure skating pair champions, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler. Unfortunately, there characters are paper thin and never given anything funny or interesting to do. I am personally pissed that GOB was wasted as the villain. Anybody who has seen any of Arrested Development knows that Will Arnett would make a great over the top comedic villain. Instead, Will’s character is given hardly any lines and is made to look like a dimwit. Jenna Fischer (Pam from the Office) shows up as Heder’s love interest. She is also underused; however, it is still nice to see her get some work outside of TV. The figure skating scenes are all hilarious and are so much more entertaining then watching modeling or dodgeball. The physical comedy provides a lot of the humor in the film. The story ends as expected. The audience seemed to eat this movie up. It is very funny, but don’t go in expecting anything more than a very stupid movie about Will Ferrell as a figure skater. This is no Knocked Up. DarthEnder
