Will Ferrell and Jon Heder are “love them or hate them” kind of comedians. You either loved “Anchorman” and “Napoleon Dynamite” or you thought they were the stupidest movies you have ever seen. If you enjoyed those films, and I really liked both of them, “Blades of Glory” is right up your alley. Ferrell plays Chazz Michael Michaels, a renegade skating lothario with long hair and a penchant for loose women and the bottle. He is a rock star in the skating world and his rival is Heder’s character, Jimmy MacElroy, a pixie-ish looking skater, stuck in a form of adolescence and in love with the grace of his sport. When the two skaters tie for a gold medal and end up fighting on the winner’s platform, they are banned from skating. They find a way to return to skating three and a half years later when they stumble upon a loophole that would allow them to enter the pairs category.

Being the first men to skate pairs in skating history is the main joke of the film, but it is a good one and there are a lot of laughs there. Yes, the audience laughs at what these two men have to do to compete in a sport that is typically reserved for men and women, but the writers also delve into the other aspects of skating that are ripe for the picking - the music, the costumes and of course the competition.

Ferrell and Heder are both very funny in the movie and the script is very sharp, particularly in the opening segment of the film. Not only do we see their gold medal performances but there are ESPN-type pieces on their characters and their background that are just priceless. There are some really great lines and a lot of them got covered up by the audience’s hysterical laughter at the screening I attended.

“Blades of Glory” has a terrific supporting cast. Amy Poehler and Will Arnett play the main duo’s rivals on the ice. They are funny and have some great scenes but they are underused, as is Jenna Fischer, who plays the evil pair’s little sister and Heder’s love interest. The film wasn’t very long, so their stories could have been pumped up a little bit. The best supporting actor in the film is Nick Swardson as MacElroy’s stalker. He has some of the best lines early in the film. He has appeared in some mediocre movies (“The Benchwarmers” and “Grandma’s Boy”) and done some great work, so it was great to see him in a good movie.

“Blades of Glory” is a solid movie with a lot of laughs. It won’t win any awards, except maybe a few MTV Movie Awards, but it is worth a viewing, especially if you are a fan of these types of comedies.

***1/2

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