One-joke wonder with skates on

Blades of Glory, directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, (M). Showing at SkyCity, Regent

Movie Meter: 3/5

Will Ferrell had a wonderful comedy role in Mel Brooks' film The Producers. He played a former SS officer who believed the second coming would be the return of Hitler, and had trained his flock of pigeons to give the infamous salute on his orders. Disastrously eccentric, he was hilarious.

Here, as sex hungry, raunchy, world-class skater Chazz Michael Michaels, he also has some very funny moments, even if he has to work harder with a character so over-the-top the jokes are really obvious.

He's up against a very pretty Jon Heder as rink rival Jimmy MacElroy, and the two fight it out for men's figure skating honours. After tying for the gold medal, they fight in public, incur the wrath of their ruling body, and are banned from the event for life. Their coach is devastated.

As he is no longer a star with medal potential, Jimmy is tossed out, literally, by his foster dad, who has turned from breeding race horses to doing the same thing with gold medal-winning athletes. The pair are reduced to making kids laugh by skating in funny costumes or selling them skating gear in a sports shop. Ferrell turns up regularly drunk on stage, so there's the expected bad taste riff where he vomits in his Evil Wizard suit, and the two skaters hate each other's guts even more than before.

Then an oddball who has been stalking Jimmy finds a loophole in the rules which would allow them to enter pairs competition, but it means that the two are going to have to room together, live together, do everything together to prepare in time.

To top it off, while Ferrell can still be blokey, the beautiful Jimmy has to become even more fairylike, and be tossed around by his partner who finds the close bodily contact rather less pleasing than do a bunch of All Blacks in a ruck.

From that point most of the jokes are crotchily predictable, but there are still some great moments, particularly in the buildup to, and attempted execution of, a skating move called the Iron Lotus in which an inch too much to the left, and the partner's head would be severed from his body.

There is some real skating, and viewers who follow the sport will find lots of familiar references, including the presence, albeit brief, of the real Nancy Kerrigan.

It is a little long for what is essentially a single joke, played for every possible variation, but there are laughs for everyone, from the romcom play between Heder and Jenna Fischer to the moment when Jimmy's razor-sharp skate gives Chazz an unintended shave. It may not be a movie everyone will remember in a couple of years, but it will inject some humour into a wintry season.

- © Fairfax NZ News