Blades of Glory (2007)

This has got to be one of the funniest movies that I have ever seen. I laughed so hard that I walked out of this movie feeling as if I had done 200 crunches. There were very few low points in which the humor died down. Most of the time I was in tears, laughing hysterically.

The story is about 2 male skaters that are extremely competitive. Their scores were tied and they both shared the Gold medal spot for a brief moment. They began fighting which resulted in their removal from the men's single ice skating competitions for the rest of their lives. After failing to achieve any sort of happiness with odd jobs (Ferrell ends up skating for a children's ice show and Heder ends up working for an ice skating shop)they agree to skate together in the couple's skating competitions.

Ferrell plays a sex addicted, egotistical guy who seems to be very low on the IQ scale. Heder plays a soft, effeminate guy who has lived a very priviledged life (until he gets kicked out of men's skating and his adoptive father disowns him). The two personalities clash to no end.

My husband and I truly enjoyed this show. There are a lot of sexual references made in the movie but it's used in a hilarious way. I wouldn't recommend younger children watching the movie simply because of the references.

I also find Will Ferrell a bit hit or miss. When he's on, he's on and when he's off it can be painful to watch. With this movie, though, he really hit the mark. It's chock full of silliness and sight gags that make watching it a lot of fun. There is some very crude humor and some gross-out moments but I thought Ferrell was rather more restrained than he sometimes is and that certainly worked to the advantage of this movie. The character in this movie is more or less interchangeable with most Ferrell characters but that's not the point. The point is the sheer silliness of the plot, the over the top events, and the hilarity of watching skating star after skating star make often surprising cameo appearances.

Jon Heder is really wonderful in this movie. Where Ferrell is pure silliness, Heder is good at creating some nuance in his characters. Though his characters tend to be spacey and weird, he does a good job of making them somewhat real. He has a good sense for when understatement can do a great deal more than something very overt and obvious. I think he is a great talent and look forward to seeing more of him.

As far as slapstick comedies go, this one is something of a gem and is worth watching solely for the hilariously silly skating routine at the end of the movie. Ferrell and Heder make a great duo and I'd like to see them do another movie together.

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Movie 4.5

I've always been a fan of Will Ferrell. His juvenile hijinks, potty-mouth humor, and physical mannerisms are something I've come to enjoy over the course of his career, and not even so much during his SNL stint, but from his work in Anchorman on up. Meanwhile, Jon Heder certainly made his mark in comedy with his portrayal of the socially awkward and quirky Napoleon Dynamite, something of a surprising low-budget oddity that probably caught a lot of other people off guard as well. Put these two together in a movie produced by, you guessed it, Ben Stiller, and you've got a very silly and over-the-top sports comedy. Like a certain other Ben Stiller film about the comedic sports underdog story (Dodgeball), Blades of Glory is another mishmash of elements that is meant to, first and foremost, entertain, but also give some kind of weird, outlandish version of inspiration at the same time. Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Heder) are figure skating's top two stars. Skills-wise, they're the best at what they do, but couldn't be more opposite from one another in terms of personality. Hating each others' guts and being forced to share Olympic gold, they get into a scuffle during the awards ceremony and are banned for life from singles skating. But upon an urging by MacElroy's creepiest and most obsessed fan, Hector (Nick Swardson), a loophole is found in the rules saying MacElroy can still compete in doubles. Predictably, as if you couldn't tell by the cover, MacElroy and Michaels become male doubles skating partners and attempt to achieve gold once again. If you know Will Ferrell's style of comedy and like it, then there's not much else to be said. The film is raunchy, silly, quirky, and not all that high-brow outside of a delightful performance by Jenna Fischer (who looked surprisingly hot in lingerie). Will Arnett and Amy Poehler co-star (with Fischer) as the opposing team, and Craig T. Nelson, as you can guess, plays Ferrell and Heder's coach.

Video 4.5

Having watched quite a few different types of genres on BD lately (lots of comedy, but the occasional drama and action flick), I have to say I'm surprised at the level of picture quality presented in a lot of the comedies I've seen, and Blades of Glory looks as glorious as its title implies. The color palette full of blues, whites, and shiny variations of the two, with a splash of red, looks stunning. From the very outset of the opening sequence where the two skaters are competing against one another at the Olympics, there's a very nice sense of pop to the overall picture. The details in their costumes, the clarity of the crowd, and the flawless digital removal of all the wiring looks excellent, which to me is kind of shocking for a simple comedy movie. All the little sequins on Heder's peacock suit, the bright reds and oranges on Ferrell's fire suit, or their outer space and electro-laden lights on their space suits look remarkably clear and vibrant. Outside of competition, blacks and contrast handle especially well revealing shadows, lines, facial features, and overall image detail in a clear, almost lifelike manner. Again, it's all about the costuming. My favorite one outside of the skater suits was Jenna Fischer's lingerie. I thought she was kind of cute on The Office and all, but wow. That black nightie with the all the cleavage and the fishnet stalkings look great. Oh, and so does the quality of black levels within the costume itself. The only downside to the picture? Saturation tends to be a little low on the non-competition scenes reserving a lot of the film's lighting and shine for the glossier parts of the movie, but I never found it to be a huge problem. It does, however, knock the overall transfer down just a bit, but is a beauty to behold, regardless.

Audio 4.5

Back in the day before Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA became the economical norm for disc space, there once was a codec called Uncompressed PCM. And while it took up a good deal of memory, it packed a wallop of a bit rate. Blades of Glory, for all its ridiculousness, got a mind-bottling presentation from Paramount/Dreamworks with an audio encode of 6.9Mbps, that's nearly twice the bit rate of Avatar. Strange for a sports comedy to get such royal treatment, I know, when so many other newly re-/released and catalog titles are still getting shafted with lossy Dolby Digital (*cough* Warner Brothers), but big thanks to the people at Paramount for giving Blades a very excellent aural presentation. My biggest surprise upon a few re-watches on my newly-equipped HT setup (new center, fronts, and sub added since then) is the amount of directionality and separation within the film's sound design. Something I've always liked about sports movies is the ambiance of crowd noise, and this track definitely didn't disappoint. Dialogue remains clear and centered, while the front sides and rears do a tremendous job of placing cheers, random fans voicing their support, and camera clicks all over the place. The score by Theodore Shapiro or what few instances there are of record label songs totally immerse you. Aerosmith's I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing and Queen's Flash are two great songs by two very great bands, and hearing them in lossless audio during the competitive events is a blast every time. The only downside, or rather the only elements not truly taken advantage of, are the LFEs. While there is some slight bass from the music, your sub never really gets a workout until the very last scene with some fireworks and Ferrell blasting fire into the camera. But all in all, the sound couldn't be any better.

Extras 3.5

There aren't a whole lot of extras, but a good majority of them are in HD and pretty entertaining for what they're worth. There's a making-of, a segment for the skate choreography, one for costuming, various interviews with cast and crew, deleted scenes, alternate takes, and a trailer that amount to a little over an hour in total duration. One of the highlights for me was the making-of, in which Ferrell, Heder, Fischer, Stiller, and the two directors are very candid and seriously funny (as in serious, yet jocular) about how the movie came about, what they hoped to "achieve" by making it, and their experiences in filming it. My second favorite would have to be the interview with Arnett and Poehler, I liked them for what little exposure I had to their SNL days, but I've seen or heard them in a few movies since then and like their chemistry and overall demeanor a lot. Lastly, my favorite extra is the unscripted Moviefone Q&A between Ferrell, Heder, and Arnett. The three get along very well, don't take the interview too seriously, and offer some pretty funny responses to the questions they get asked. My one disappointment in this package, however, is the lack of a commentary. Had those three taken the time to sit down, or maybe if a combination of them were in the booth with Stiller, Poehler, Nelson, Fischer, Swardson (maybe in-character as Hector) or either of the directors, I think this would've made for a great, great listen to compliment the zaniness of the film itself. It's a darn shame nothing was made, but there's still a good amount of extras here that fans would probably get a kick out of.

Overall 4.5

Blades of Glory is crazy and over-the-top. It's a story about male pairs figure skating with raunchy humor, sexual references, a balanced dose of slapstick, and even a little wordplay here and there. As ridiculous as the premise seems, it's also a movie in the care of some really good comedic actors in Ferrell, Heder, Fischer, Arnett, and Poehler, all of who give great deliveries and possess excellent chemistry with one another. With near-reference picture and sound and a slightly underwhelming, but still entertaining, set of extras, Blades of Glory comes highly recommended. Boom!

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I expected Blades of Glory to be fairly stupid without much maturity, and that's precisely what I got. Except I was surprisingly entertained by witty, dirty, and sometimes both witty and dirty, one-liners. You're not going to get a cinematic masterpiece here, but you will get a side of figure skating you've never seen before.

Will Ferrell is once again cocky, selfish, rude, and witty. Take Ron Burgundy's personality, Ricky Bobby's intelligence (or lack thereof), lace up some skates, and you have Chazz Michael Michaels. Jon Heder (Jimmy MacElroy) doesn't take away from Ferrell's presence, and even gives a presence of his own by standing his ground and going after a young lady. Jimmy has a bit of competition with Chazz on the ice, and even though Chazz "is figure skating," he keeps his pride. The two clashing skaters form a duet and show everyone what "twin dongs" can do.

Want Blades of Glory (2007) Discount?

Will Ferrell springboards off the success of Talladega Nights and lampoons another niche sport in Blades of Glory, a satire of figure skating. Although his character is more akin to his self absorbed and perverse Ron Burgundy, the film relies on the same formula that succeeded in his Nascar film, as joke after joke is leveled at the sport most of us don`t quite "get". The plot is full of one movie cliché after another, everything from a romance ruined when one party misinterprets a precarious situation to a breakneck chase to reach the arena in time to compete, but as long as you understand going in what to expect, this is a solid Will Ferrell film.

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