Blades of Glory

Dreamworks

MTV Pictures

Starring: Jon Michael Heder, Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Craig T. Nelson

No sport deserves more ridicule than figure skating. Any sport that forces five year olds out of bed at 5 AM so they can practice until their ankles go numb deserves a satiric jab or two. Add to that the fact that figure skating judges are about as impartial as SEC officials calling a Big Ten game and you have a field of comedic loam ripe for the planting of various slams, jokes and putdowns. Why, then, does Blades of Glory fail to make any of these?

Blades of Glory, the new figure-skating comedy with Will Ferrell and Jon Michael Heder, follows the story of two men banned from male figure-skating. I won’t take any more time explaining, because by now the ads have shown you everything this movie has that resembles a plot. This is not a comedy that depends on plot, writing, or social commentary. This is a movie that depends on you laughing at two men grabbing each other in unmentionable places.

And yet, there were no "Captain Eo" jokes to be had. Pity.

Not that spandex-clad men groping each other isn’t hilarious. I laughed my head off, and so did the rest of the theater. Blades of Glory has been getting mixed reviews, and I find it unfathomable that anyone would give it one star. Sure, it’s mindless, but that’s part of the fun. It does what it does very well, which is more than one can say for most MTV Films comedies (if you enjoyed Joe’s Apartment or Saving Silverman, you’re probably brain-dead).

The problem is that Blades of Glory never goes for the jugular. Figure skating is full of unfair judges, catty performers, and suicidally driven parents and coaches who strip children of their youth and adolescence, none of whom get the treatment they deserve. Figure skating is one of those pompous cultural institutions that deserves ridicule, like National Public Radio or college professors who mistake Ebonics for a language. The jokes in Blades of Glory, hilarious though they may be, are (mostly) about the superficial aspects of figure skating: the goofy outfits, the absurd hairdos, the humiliating antics male figure skaters do to distract us from the fact that, well, they’re prancing around in sequins.

If you can look at this and not laugh, you're probably comatose.

The fact that the writers missed out on this golden opportunity is one of many problems. The script is pretty tame. It’s Ferrell, Heder, and the rest of the cast who make the so-so writing laugh out loud funny. Without Heder’s elastic face and deadpan innocence, most of his scenes wouldn’t be funny. Likewise, Ferrell’s ability to make arrogant stupidity endlessly entertaining makes his character worth watching.

What’s my final word on Blades of Glory? At times side-splitting, it’s worth a look. Just make sure you’re comfortable with one man grabbing another’s business, gory-yet-cartoony beheadings, and the presence of Brian Boitano not fighting grizzly bears with his fire-breath. I know, letdown city.