Blades of Glory - mini-review

All right, that's it. Intervention time: no more Will Ferrell movies for me. I thought Elf was pretty cute, and I'm vaguely interested in seeing Stranger Than Fiction because Emma Thompson in a Will Ferrell movie I just have to see to believe, but otherwise I'm done with it. Why torture myself?

Blades of Glory is not completely irredeemable, I'll grant you. It pretty much skewers the "sport" of modern figure skating dead on with its penchant for sequined costumes, make-up that would have been tacky in the days of disco, and predilection for smothering any sort of athleticism in gaudy pageantry. (I used to like figure skating back in the days of Dorothy Hamill and Scott Hamilton; now it's nearly as florid and overblown as a Miss America contest. And that's just the men's division!) BoG parodies the ridiculousness wondferfully: the hair, the costumes, the tantrums after the scores have been posted, the he-so-has-to-be-gay-are-you-kidding-me-ness of it all. Will Arnett and Amy Poehler (real-life spouses) are perfectly creepy as a brother and sister pairs team who is just a little too close for comfort.

Mr. Mouse and I did snort and chortle several times although the jokes are fatuous at best. When the rating was posted at the start of the movie, it warned of a "comic image of violence" which intrigued us to no end - what could that be? It was completely hilarious and impossible to describe, and Mr. Mouse made me back the movie up so we could watch it again.

Bottom line: If you're a wicked Will Ferrell fan, this one is better than average. If you're not a wicked Will Ferrell fan, I recommend rewatching Caddyshack for the 829th time instead.