BLADES OF GLORY

By
Shannon Onstot
Community Relations Manager
KUNV 91.5 FM
University of Nevada Las Vegas
email: smonstot@yahoo.com


 

  

Blades of Glory
Stinker!

Will Ferrell must think moviegoers are moronic, blind, and have no memory. We’ve seen the same character several times now, and Blades of Glory is no exception. The film is predictable, stupid and completely offensive. I have to admit that there were a few funny moments, but Will Ferrell’s inability to break out of the same character he played in Old School, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Anchorman and Wedding Crashers ruined an idea that could have actually been original.

Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrel) and Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) play two very different figure skaters. Chazz is known for his ability to improvise and “add sex” to his routines, while Jimmy is a cookie cutter, by-the-book skater who never added passion to his routines but executed all of them perfectly. When the two skaters tie at the Stockholm Winter Games, they get into a fight on the ice that results in the immolation of a beloved mascot. Both Chazz and Jimmy are banned from the sport of figure skating forever, and their lives subsequently go down the tubes.

Jimmy MacElroy’s stalker, played by comedian Nick Swardson, violates his restraining order to tell Jimmy that he’s found a loophole in the figure skating bylaws that allows an ex-communicated skater to perform in another division of the sport: pairs. The only other skater desperate enough to join Jimmy happens to be Chazz Michael Michaels. Jimmy leaves his job in a ski shop, and rescues a drunken Chazz from his job as a skating wizard in a kids show. They move in together with Jimmy’s former coach and the predictability and offensiveness ensues.

Once they are enrolled in the pairs skating competition, training begins, and of course almost every single character has to make a stink about the fact that two men are skating together. Didn’t see that coming. The fact that the writers had no other joke to rely on made me question their comedic ability and their integrity. In Chazz and Jimmy’s first competition, they are inevitably skating with their faces in each other’s crotches. First of all, I’ve never seen a skating move quite like that, and I think that audiences would find a move like that offensive no matter who the skaters were. Secondly, the reaction of everybody in the film just perpetuates the idea that being grossed out by a homosexual couple being openly together in public is funny. If the writers had turned that idea around, and poked fun at people who still feel uncomfortable with same sex couples, I think it would have made the film groundbreaking and maybe even original.

Another thing that may have made the film funnier is allowing Jon Heder’s character to share in some of Ferrel’s spotlight. Thankfully, he was not typecast into another Napoleon Dynamite role, and played a smarter and more realistic character than he has before. He wasn’t funny though, and it seems like he was never even given the chance to be funny. Ferrell was too busy making sure that audiences see that he sings silly songs and likes to shake his hairy gut in your face. Haven’t seen that one before.

If anything had some comedic merit in the entire film, it was in Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg a rival skating pair (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) and their sweet outcast of a sister Katie (Jenna Fischer). The pair has dominated the pairs skating competition for years, and resort to spying and violence to prevent Chazz and Jimmy from competing. I thought their interactions with their sister in the film were different and a nice change of pace from Ferrell’s bumbling wisecracks. Also, Jenna Fischer provides the only realistic character in the film and was refreshing to see in a cast full of over the top idiots and awkward background characters.

I’m disappointed in Will Ferrell. His fans know that he has the ability to play truly original and grown-up roles, but when he resorts to the same frat-boy style jokes over and over again it chips away at the charming and witty fellow he can be at times. This movie was his biggest flop to date and I can’t believe that such a good cast has to be associated with such an offensive film.