Review: Blades Of Glory

Will Ferrell is a very funny man – usually. His ridiculous cow-bell playing on Saturday Night Live will live in infamy for years to come. His solo streaking in Old School is a classic as is the “baby Jesus” scene from Talledega Nights. But for every triumph he seems to get involved with a dud and Blades Of Glory is one of those losers.

Maybe it’s because I’m one of the few Canadian women born without the figure skating gene but even the premise was dodgy, to me. Two solo figure skaters, stripped of their medals for getting into a brawl, reinvent themselves as a pairs team – the first men in competition in that category. There are dated gay jokes and too-tight (and painful looking) costumes but once you’ve seen them kick each other in the family jewels a couple of dozen times you’ve pretty much seen it all. I have to really be bored to stop a film before it’s over and I didn’t even get to the main event in Blades of Glory before I found something more exciting to do, like rearrange my sock drawer.

This isn’t the Will Ferrell of Anchorman or Wedding Crashers. It’s not even the Will Ferrell who does the bang-on impersonations of James Lipton and Robert Goulet. It’s apparently the Will Ferrell who’s banking money for his kids’ forthcoming college educations. Pity.