One’s fire. One’s ice. One’s blond, the other brunet. One was raised on Detroit’s mean streets.
The other was plucked from an orphanage by a freak of wealth and ambition.
They despise the other. But once they fall on hard times, each needs the other.
Can their driven coach make their volatile chemistry work in the ultra-Lycra-clad world of competitive figure skating?
Right about now, Moira Kelly and D.B. Sweeney should be triple axeling in their graves.
Wait, they aren’t dead. But the battling leads in 1992’s now-campy wonder “The Cutting Edge” will recognize what they and their Coach Anton Pamchenko wrought when they see “Blades of Glory.”
This perfectly silly spoof of competitive figure skating stars Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as Chazz Michael Michaels and Jim MacElroy, the first male pair in the sport’s history. Coach – and by that we mean, Craig T. Nelson – plays their reluctant, then dedicated coach.
As far as we know, the movie is the only sports inspirational to come out this year not based on a true story.
Yet, like a slew of guy-anxiety comedies (“Old School” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,”), it toys with and jests about present-day issues of masculinity. Even so, contrary to the quasi-provocative notion of two guys partnering up, there’s little cutting edge in “Blades of Glory.”
This is a good thing. The ice so many comedies skate on can be thin. And trailers suggested “Blades” might be one long gay joke.
Instead, directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon (making their feature debut), the comedy plunges so deep into lame (lamé?) it comes out on the side of fangless fun.
Some of the tartest lines come early as Scott Hamilton and Jim Lampley provide color commentary for the championship that leads to Chazz and Jimmy’s exile. And, from start to finale, the movie nails its spoofy leaps about Olympic telecasts and their overheated profiles.
So how ready and willing were skating’s royalty to embrace the ribbing? Well, Dorothy Hamill, Brian Boitano, Peggy Fleming and Nancy Kerrigan all make game appearances here. Granted, they are the judges who bar Chazz and Jimmy from the sport forever. (Sacha Cohen also has a cameo.)
Rated PG-13, “Blades” is more petulant and pouty than cruel. The macho sass comes by way of Ferrell’s character. Chazz proves the tattooed yang to Jimmy’s yen for pastels.
“A tsunami of swagger,” as one announcer puts it, Chazz has impulse-control issues. He’s a sex addict, a crotch-grabber. He choreographs his routines to songs like Billy Squire’s “The Stroke.” His idiot’s riff on the allure of the Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” (featured on the trailer) still gets giggles.
During the ban, Chazz makes his living at a Grublets on Ice capade. Faring no better, Jimmy fumbles around at a sporting goods store. Even his onetime stalker (Nick Swardson) knows a loophole is needed.
Although his bouffant alone could earn its own SAG card, Heder’s Jimmy is the comedic straight man to Ferrell’s Chazz.
Will Arnett and Amy Poehler play the duo’s rivals: icky siblings Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg. Kate, their sane, sensible and cute sis (Jenna Fischer), will catch Jimmy’s eye. But will she break up the pair?
Once Chazz tells his fallen partner, “Hey, dude, take my hand,” it’s “game on.”
The movie muscle-glides toward the showdown in Montreal. There Chazz and Jimmy will attempt a revolutionary death spiral, a throw-jump thingy cooked up by Coach.
The Iron Lotus makes the Pamchenko look like child’s play. Their obsessed – and traumatized, it turns out – coach tells them the move has been attempted only in one nation. To tell you where would blunt the joke.
Let’s just say the move threatens to put the “cut” back in cutting edge.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com; try the Screen Team blog at denverpostbloghouse.com.
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| “Blades of Glory”
PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language, a comic violent image and some drug references|1 hour, 30 minutes|COMEDY| Directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon; written by Jeff Cox, Craig Cox, John Altschuler and
Dave Krinsky; photography by Stefan Czapsky; starring Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, William Fichtner |Opens today at area theaters.
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Ferrell skates to top
Will Ferrell’s career seems to be skyrocketing, but he has a way to go to get into the billion-dollar club. Here are the top five movies for Ferrell, whose new film, “Blades of Glory,” opens today (first figure is total domestic gross, second is opening weekend, in millions):
1. Elf $173.4 ($31.1, 2003)
2. Talladega Nights: The Ballad
of Ricky Bobby $148.2 ($47, 2006)
3. Anchorman: The Legend
of Ron Burgundy $85.3
($28.4, 2004)
4. Old School $75.6 ($17.4, 2003)
5. Bewitched $63.3 ($20.1, 2005)
BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM
