Written by Hombre Divertido
Though it could be called Talladega Nights on Ice, Blades of Glory will please the average Will Farrell fan.
In this outing, Farrell is Chazz Michael Michaels, the hottest thing to hit ice-skating since…well, just the hottest thing to hit ice-skating. His chief rival and polar opposite is Jimmy MacElroy played by a subdued Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite fame. The two tie for Gold at the American championship, a fight breaks out on the award podium, and they are both banned from the sport for life.
Jimmy becomes a skate salesman, while Chazz skates in a kiddie Ice show. Chazz’s drunken exploits on ice during the performance for the kids are some of the funniest moments in the movie. Luckily a loophole is discovered, and they can get back into professional skating if they team up as a pairs team i.e.: The Odd Couple on ice.
The situation of two men becoming a skating team while living and training together is ripe with laughter, and Blades delivers albeit at the rankest level. There are plenty of crotch shots, and Farrell strutting his stuff, and even a few well-crafted lines to keep the more creative fans happy.
If Blades lacks anything it is the ensemble cast that Farrell had around him in Anchorman. Though the performances of Heder, Craig T Nelson, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, and Jenna Fischer are adequate, the characters are unexplored, and subsequently overshadowed by the cameos of former ice-skating greats, or the performance of Jim Lampley as the skating announcer who has one of the funniest lines in the film.
In Anchorman Farrell was surrounded by well-developed characters played by incredibly talented actors. Though the performances of his supporting casts in Talladega Nights were good, they were not up to that of Anchorman, and the downward spiral continues in Blades. Ultimately we the viewers suffer for it.
Farrell is a strong enough actor to carry the film Stranger Than Fiction, but when doing an outrageous comedy such as this, he needs more support.
Recommendation: This film definitely has its moments, but you quite possibly will leave the theater unsatisfied. Wait for the video, and make it a double feature with Anchorman to insure a night of solid laughter.
