Spring Break
'Blades' Anything But Dull
Movie Review
Michael Corsino
Issue date: 4/2/07 Section: Focus
It's not often that the big screen is graced with a story about one of the world's fiercest and most competitive sports: figure skating. While this may not really be the case, Will Ferrell and company make an attempt at showing the comedic side of the sport that is figure skating. "Blades of Glory" is an epic movie of two men's professional figure skaters who make a triumphant return to become champions after being banned by the same sport.
Will Ferrell, playing Chazz Michael Michaels, alongside rival Jimmy MacElroy, Jon Heder of "Napoleon Dynamite" fame, are the top two skaters in the sport with far different techniques as well as personalities. Michaels, a sex addict, uses his outrageous personality to win over fans while MacElroy is an engineered athlete, adopted by a billionaire bent on molding winter sport champions. The two meet up at the Stockholm Winter Games where they skate to a dual gold medal. Appalled over the results, the two become engaged in a physical fight that ends up causing them to be stripped of their medals and banned from singles men skating forever.
Both Michaels and MacElroy become outcasts after being exiled from the sport in which they made it big. While Michaels takes to playing the lead role in a children's ice show, and later gets firedd for being intoxicated, MacElroy takes up employment at a local skate shop. After an obsessive fan talks to MacElroy about returning to the sport in the pairs division thanks to a loophole in the rules, MacElroy seeks out a partner only to run into his archrival, Michaels. After a bit of convincing from MacElroy's longtime coach, played by Craig T. Nelson of the TV series "Coach," the enemies form the first male pairs team in figure skating history.
This sets the stage for the comedic team to enter into the training stage prior to competition. It is here that Heder is able to create and evolve not only his character, but also his comedic abilities. Mirroring each other, the duo train and live together going back and forth with cheap shots and humorous fights that make the movie into the true comedy it is.
Will Ferrell, playing Chazz Michael Michaels, alongside rival Jimmy MacElroy, Jon Heder of "Napoleon Dynamite" fame, are the top two skaters in the sport with far different techniques as well as personalities. Michaels, a sex addict, uses his outrageous personality to win over fans while MacElroy is an engineered athlete, adopted by a billionaire bent on molding winter sport champions. The two meet up at the Stockholm Winter Games where they skate to a dual gold medal. Appalled over the results, the two become engaged in a physical fight that ends up causing them to be stripped of their medals and banned from singles men skating forever.
Both Michaels and MacElroy become outcasts after being exiled from the sport in which they made it big. While Michaels takes to playing the lead role in a children's ice show, and later gets firedd for being intoxicated, MacElroy takes up employment at a local skate shop. After an obsessive fan talks to MacElroy about returning to the sport in the pairs division thanks to a loophole in the rules, MacElroy seeks out a partner only to run into his archrival, Michaels. After a bit of convincing from MacElroy's longtime coach, played by Craig T. Nelson of the TV series "Coach," the enemies form the first male pairs team in figure skating history.
This sets the stage for the comedic team to enter into the training stage prior to competition. It is here that Heder is able to create and evolve not only his character, but also his comedic abilities. Mirroring each other, the duo train and live together going back and forth with cheap shots and humorous fights that make the movie into the true comedy it is.
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