Column: 'Blades of Glory' fails at funny

By Megan Becwar
April 3, 2007

Stupid comedies can be genius, but the comedy has to outweigh the stupid. "Blades of Glory" doesn't quite meet its quota.

Good stupid comedies, including "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and "Dodgeball" are indeed idiotic, but the physical comedy is creative; the dialogue is sharp, quotable perfection; and the characters are amusing.

Unlike these fine pieces of cinema, "Blades of Glory" is lazily made. The only real workers were the special-effects people. The skating looks great, but sadly, who the hell cares?

Two male figure skaters (i.e., easy targets) are banned from the sport after a brawl. A loophole allows them to compete in doubles skating. They are unable to find partners, so they have to learn to work together. They make their way to the top as the first-ever man-paired figure skating team. Naturally, people work to bring them down but not to worry.

Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) is a stuck-up pretty boy "renowned for his personal hygiene." His coach (Craig T. Nelson) decides MacElroy will be the girl in the pair. Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) is an inappropriately confident, "ice-devouring sex tornado" in the style of Ron Burgundy.

The fire-and-ice motif plays out in their routine, but it's really just an annoyingly simple tool used to provide lots of I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I dialogue. Behold:

Chazz: What are you, the Rug Doctor?

Jimmy: Maybe I am.

Chazz: I'm the Rug Master.

Jimmy: What does that even mean?

Everyone but Nelson has a hard time spitting out lines with any degree of comedic mastery. Ferrell is channeling an even more simplistic Burgundy, Heder is a boring effeminate stereotype and Will Arnett (of "Arrested Development" fame) should have had more than three lines. Almost nothing is quotable.

But this movie really isn't about words. It's about mild sex jokes, kicking people in the crotch and treating the issue of homophobia with considerably less tact than even Borat pulled out of his moustache.

Maybe we need to laugh about homophobia before we can get over it, but the approach found in "Blades of Glory" surely isn't the way to go. Putting one guy's package in another guy's face and then watching that second guy cringe is not funny, and I get the gnawing feeling that it's justifying or trivializing something... never mind; it's gone.

Physical comedy can be funny: one man stabbing a man in the chest with a trident, two guys riding a cheetah, a coach being crushed by two tons of irony — all funny, but only because they are expertly set up and executed bits of slapstick.

Chazz is told at one point, "I don't see what's so funny." He replies, "If you were as drunk as me you would." I guess that's the key to enjoying this film.

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Column: 'Blades of Glory' fails at funny

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