Blades of Glory (2007)

I've come quite late to the Will Ferrell party, I must admit. Only after quite a lot of badgering did I consent to watch Anchorman and Old School, and while I loved the latter, I thought the former was funny but flawed and inconsistent. Since then, though, I've watched every new release Ferrell's put his name to, including this rather lacklustre sports comedy.

Will Ferrell, as Chazz Michael Michaels, is a figure skater who makes up for his lack of precision by exuding pure testosterone out on the ice. His main rival, Jimmy MacElroy, is his polar opposite: all delicacy and effeminate costumes, not to mention a flawless technique. When a brawl over a shared gold medal gets them both banned from men's singles skating for life, there's clearly only one thing for it: they'll have to skate together.

The rather ridiculous image of two men ice-skating together -- as if one man ice-skating wasn't absurd enough -- is pretty much the only joke this film has to offer. Ferrell steals every scene he's in; sharing the lead means he doesn't have to fulfill any kind of straight man role and can be as over the top and insane as he likes. Unfortunately, he's let down by a messy script which sticks so rigidly to the sports movie template that you might as well just bung Dodgeball in the DVD player again instead.

It's a pity really, because "kick some ice" is an awesome, awesome tagline which really deserved a better movie to hang itself on.

IMDB link

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

worst movie of the year. if another that comes out is worse, i'll be surprised and horrified at the same time.