Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / March 2007

BLADES OF GLORY
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****):  ***

"An ice devouring sex tornado," Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) is the
world famous, pot-bellied bad boy of the ice skating world -- as well as the
adult film industry.  The mere mention of Chazz's name causes announcers to
swoon in a never-ending sea of accolades for him, from "sex on ice" to "a
tsunami of swagger."

His competition for the glory and the gold is always his archrival Jimmy
MacElroy (Jon Heder from NAPOLEON DYNAMITE).  A guy clearly in touch with
his feminine side, Jimmy's signature routine is his famous "galloping
peacock" that ends with him unleashing a dove, which he carefully conceals
in his pants.

In BLADES OF GLORY, a film that could have gone wrong in so many ways,
Ferrell and Heder prove to be a perfectly matched pair of comedic skaters
who have an uncountable number of wonderfully delicious bits of physical
comedy.  Fast and funny, the film is simply a whole lot of fun.  Completely
and shamelessly silly, the movie elicits more than enough big laughs to make
even the most cynical and parsimonious moviegoer feel like he got his
money's worth of entertainment.  It is so over the top at times that there
appears to be no top whatsoever.

Early on in the story, both skaters are banned from competitive figure
skating for life, but they come back due to a technicality that allows them
to compete so long as they dance as the world's first male-male pair.
Putting their rivalry aside, they practice hard for the big meet against the
Van Waldenbergs, a brother and sister pair of twins, played with devilish
delight by Will Arnett and Amy Poehler.

The fiendish twins, who will stop at nothing to try to break up their new
rivals, send their innocent sister Katie (Jenna Fischer, "The Office") to
seduce both Jimmy and Chazz.  (A funny side story concerns the ever-horny
Chazz's sex addiction.  He attends an AA-like organization called Sex
Addicts.  As Luke Wilson leads the group, everyone in the room is luring
someone else with their eyes.)

As Jimmy and Chazz go for the gold, they have a secret weapon -- a move
called the "Iron Lotus."  No skater has ever performed it without
decapitating his fellow skater.  During practice, Chazz fails fifty times in
a row, as evidenced by the severed heads of the dummies he practiced on, but
once on the official ice, he hopes to be able perform it successfully for
the first time.  The tension mounts.

BLADES OF GLORY runs a very fast 1:33.  It is rated PG-13 for "crude and
sexual humor, language, a comic violent image and some drug references" and
would be acceptable for kids around 11 and up.

The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, March 30, 2007.
In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.

Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com

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