YOU know those one-joke “Saturday Night Live” sketches that start to age after six minutes? “Blades of Glory” is one joke that lasts 93 minutes, costs $11 and could involve sitting next to a guy who retells the movie into his cellphone.
Will Ferrell and Jon Heder (“Napoleon Dynamite”) are rival figure skaters who get banned from skating solo but discover a loophole that allows them to come back in pairs competition. They hate each other, so each could find a female partner. Instead, for no reason, they become the first-ever pair of male skaters.
Will Arnett (“Arrested Development”) and “SNL”‘s Amy Poehler are their rivals, a snarling brother-sister skating team who together get fewer laughs than a mascot who keeps getting wounded in the crossfire. (The entire plot was lifted from 1992’s “The Cutting Edge.”)
Hey, you guys, figure skating – it’s girly!
We know this because the men have powder blue outfits, stuffed animals, reflective jumpsuits, a tattoo centered above the butt, Farrah Fawcett hair, sequins, a polar bear rug, poetry, fringe, “a couple of diaper bags I made for Faith Hill,” a pink sash, a “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” poster, a shiny silver scarf, homoerotic skating routines (crotch to face, crotch to butt, crotch to crotch, crotch to crotch again, crotch to crotch again again), a cranberry-colored stole, a “Kristi Yamaguchi lifetime achievement award,” headbands, a hankering for cosmetics and a $12,000 hairbrush with which “I brush my hair 100 times.”
The Ferrell character is supposed to be a butch rocker, but the script can’t resist throwing a lot of girly and gay stuff his way.
In case we miss the point, he and the other guys tell each other, “You’re my pretty lady,” “You challenging me, Princess?” “All right, ladies, tea party’s over,” “I had my face painted at the blueberry festival,” “We’re going straight up the a – – the competition” and “It’s raining men.” Men, maybe. Laughs, no.
It’s all the same joke, and there’s much more of it. If Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze skated in to bellow, “You’re not gonna put me in da cooler, Batman!” things couldn’t get much worse. You might be offended because this movie’s anti-gay, but what’s really unforgivable is that it’s anti-funny.
The few bright spots pop up when the focus shifts – such as when two guys wearing skates try to chase each other across the floor of an office building.
Just as often, rookie directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon (creators of the Geico caveman commercials) stumble across an idea that could be funny (blades caught in the steps of an escalator) and do nothing with it.
Instead, they throw in lots of episodes of falling down or bumping into the scenery as characters accuse each other of listening to Kenny G (would be funny, if this was 1991) or say things like, “He’s been staring at a pack of gum for nine hours.”
Even a throwaway line about Louis Armstrong (instead of Neil) landing on the moon is disappointing. The same joke also appears in today’s other wide release, “Meet the Robinsons,” where it’s a much better fit with the kid-centered silliness.
“Talladega Nights” had Sacha Baron Cohen; this one has Sasha Cohen – the skating pixie. If you think Sasha is funnier than Sacha, step right up. Otherwise, this is a comedy aimed at glue sniffers, high school dropouts and “Wild Hogs” fans.
BLADES OF GLORY
Thin ice.
Running time: 93 minutes. Rated PG-13 (raunchy humor, drug references, profanity). At the Lincoln Square, E-Walk, the Kips Bay others.