Blades of Glory Earns a Silver Medal for Laughs

On the figure skating judge's scale of zero to six, Will Ferrel and Jon Heder's new comedy, Blades of Glory, scores about a 4.5 for degree of difficulty, execution of some wild costume designs, and perfect landings of some pretty funny one-liners. Ferrel's term "mind bottling" (as opposed to "mind boggling") may even become as widely used as Seinfeld's "double-dipping." Written and directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck (screenwriters and directors of Culture and Angry Boy), this hyperbole-laden perspective of figure skating is worth a seat in the theater sidelines.

The story opens to a snowy orphanage, where young skating prodigy Jimmy MacElroy (Heder) is impressing millionaire science mogul Darren MacElroy (William Fichtner) with his double-axles and dizzying spins. His performance, all to the dramatic melody of Andrea Bocelli's "Con Te Partiro," wows Darren. He adopts Jimmy and takes him to his mansion laboratory, where he attempts to make him the perfect athlete (and a complete hypochondriac who can't go anywhere without hand sanitizer).

The scene fast forwards to the World Wintersport Games -- a cinematic representation of the Olympics -- where Jimmy, dressed as a peacock, competes against his arch-nemesis, the leather wearing, self-proclaimed sex-addict Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrel). The animosity is immediately evident: Jimmy tells Chazz to get out of his face, and Chazz retorts, "I'll get inside your face." The two, whose style is at completely opposite ends of the skating spectrum, tie for the gold medal and end up in a punching match on the First Place Podium. They are consequently stripped of their medals and banished from single figure skating competitions for the rest of their lives by a panel of Olympic icons, including Nancy Kerrigan, Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano. Darren immediately disowns Jimmy, leaving him on the side of the road with his matching turquoise luggage, and Chazz resorts to a life skating for a children's show on ice.

Three and a half years after their disqualification, Jimmy learns of a loophole in the figure skating rule book that would earn him the right to be back on the ice: he can't skate as a single, but he can skate with a partner. In an unlikely turn of events, he and Chazz become the world's first male skating duo, forced to compete against the Swedish brother and sister pair, Fairchild and Stranz Van Waldenberg (Amy Poehler and Will Arnett) for a second chance at the gold. Meanwhile, Chazz fights his addictions and Jimmy falls in love with the Van Waldenberg's oppressed younger sister, Katie (Jenna Fischer).

The laughs in this movie begin with the opening credits and keep coming until the Jimmy and Chazz literally fly off into the sunset. The themes of the skating competitions -- particularly the Van Waldenberg's re-enactment of President John F. Kennedy's alleged affair with Marilyn Monroe -- are so over-the-top that they are beyond silly. The tension between Jimmy and Chazz, at least for the first half of the film, is side-splitting. When they become allies, that hilarious enmity transfers to their competition with the conniving Van Waldenbergs, who are constantly trying to sabotage these newfound friends. Cameos by other great comedians like Andy Richter and Luke Wilson (who appears as a beleaguered Sex Addicts class counselor) also bring in the chuckles. If you're in the mood for a highly funny -- though not highly intelligent -- flick, this one will definitely hit the mark.