Here’s the question: Are people going to enjoy a “cutesy” lesser film by Will Ferrell? People clearly like the guy, or at least a segment of the population does, but Blades of Glory isn’t as innovative as Anchorman or as relevant as Talladega Nights. This makes it a pretty tough film to get a handle on. It’s got laughs, yeah, but it doesn’t have the “make me cry I’m laughing so hard” laughs that I’ve become used to with Ferrell.
The story is not really a priority for the movie and you can glean everything from the trailers. Will Ferrell plays a bad-ass figure skater named Chazz Michael Michaels. Jon Heder is the more effeminate Jimmy MacElroy. They’re rivals on the ice and off. But will they need to join forces to conquer some evil force? Yes! Sorry for the spoiler. One more casting note; Jenna Fischer (The Office) appears in Blades and she’s cute as a button. Let’s keep giving her roles and money! I heart her.
On to the laughs. They’re there. You will laugh, provided you like Ferrell. Blades is great in that it only makes so many “wow, two guys are skating together” jokes. I mean, yeah, they do make them, but it’s only about five minutes worth. It’s not the whole meal. The film doesn’t even really go after figure skating that hard, the skating represented is so clearly over the top that plenty of skating stars had no problems with appearing. None of the moves are very authentic, the outfits are ridiculously silly, and clearly neither Heder nor Ferrell approach anything nearing authenticity.
So then, where do the laughs come from? What is “sent up” in this spoof? Well really it’s just about being harmless and the aforementioned “cutesy.” A good example is one of the jokes shown in the trailer when Heder says “Get out of my face” and Ferrell responds with “I’ll get in your face!” It’s not a joke about skating or skaters; it’s a joke that’s just about Ferrell’s sense of humor. They could have made that joke anywhere, it’s just that they do it near an ice rink. The same goes with Will singing “My Humps” or taking his shirt off to show off his not exactly chiseled hairy chest. The skating is just a site gag, used every ten minutes or so, a bridge between Will Ferrell dialogue gags. In that sense it doesn’t matter a whit that this movie is skating and the last one was race cars. It only matters the level that old Willy performs at.
Sadly, the level Blades of Glory performs at is not up to par with Talladega, Wedding Crashers, or Anchorman. It’s just not as funny. If you like Ferrell you won’t be pissed off you saw it. If you’ve never “gotten” why people like him in the first place then you won’t get him here either. You’ll want your money back.
Hopefully we’ll get more “crying” style laughs out of our guy next time, no matter the plot or setting.
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LaremyLegel.com, I’d kill to host SNL.
