Blades of Glory

To be honest, for me a Will Ferrell comedy is like a bout with the flu: you're bound to experience it sooner or later, but you hope it will soon pass. In short, a little Will goes a long way, but he's constrained somewhat here by having to share the screen with Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder. The world of competitive ice skating provides a backdrop for their foolishness, with Ferrell playing a loutish, boozy, oversexed champion whose bête noire is the repressed, highly disciplined, poorly socialized Heder. After their mutual antipathy turns physical, resulting in both being permanently barred from any men's single competition, years pass—until ingenious coach Craig T. Nelson discovers a loophole in the ban: the pair can compete in tandem at events traditionally reserved for male-female teams. Hardly a laugh riot, co-directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck's Blades of Glory derives most of its laughs (or, more accurately, chuckles) from this vaguely homophobic odd couple premise. Unfortunately, since the script is weak and the dialogue is flat, Ferrell and Heder have to work all that much harder to wring every last drop of amusement from silly, half-baked situations. Amy Poehler and Will Arnett, playing a brother-sister skating team, fare even more poorly, and nominal female lead Jenna Fischer isn't at all convincing in her brief romantic interludes with Heder. Bottom line: Blades slips and falls hard. Not recommended. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras include a 15-minute “Return to Glory” making-of featurette, a “Moviefone Unscripted” segment with stars Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, and Will Arnett (10 min.), four deleted scenes (9 min.), nine minutes of alternate takes, a “Celebrities on Thin Ice” skating lesson featurette (6 min.), a six-minute “Arnett & Poehler: A Family Affair” interview with the married couple costars, “Cooler Than Ice: The Super-Sexy Costumes of Skating” (5 min.), a “20 Questions with Scott Hamilton” interview with the former competitive figure skater (5 min.), a “Hector: Portrait of a Psychofan” featurette with costar Nick Swardson (4 min.), a two-minute gag reel, three MTV interstitials (2 min.), the music video “Blades of Glory” performed by Bo Bice, photo galleries, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a lame comedy.] (E. Hulse)