THIS FILM stars Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as two ice dancers - the first a womanising drunk, the second a spoilt hot-house alumnus - who, after being banned from singles skating for brawling, are forced to perform together in the pairs competition.
If the two directors of Blades of Fire had failed to make something amusing of that scenario then they should have been forced to hand in their megaphones and go and live among the poor. Hit me over the head with that spade and I will feel some discomfort. Encourage a lilac-clad Ferrell to swing Heder about by the ankles and I will laugh.
The picture bears the same relation to skating as Ferrell's earlier, slightly funnier Talladega Nights did to Nascar Racing: that is to say it retains an obvious affection for the strange pastime, even as it ridicules its abundant absurdities. Ferrell's Chaz Michael Michaels and Heder's Jimmy McElroy begin their collaboration as fierce rivals, but, swayed by the healing power of ice, slowly move toward one another. This activity may be camp, vulgar and middle-brow, but, the film suggests, it has an energy that can heal wounds and spread harmony.
The dark side of skating is represented, hilariously, by the more-than-slightly incestuous sibling team of Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg
(Will Arnett and Amy Poehler), who, adopting some strategies allegedly employed by Tonya Harding, set out to nobble the guys. Why bother? Their final routine, in which a bejewelled John F Kennedy performs the Heimlich manoeuvre on a pill-popping Marilyn Monroe, seems sufficiently arresting to succeed on its own terms.
That sequence is just the funniest of half-a-dozen or so fine set-pieces. The hit rate in Blades is slightly less impressive than that of similar comic furies such as Dodgeball or Anchorman. But, mostly forswearing the homophobic gags that the material invites, this remains as agreeably diverting a comedy as we have seen this year.
Wear sequins.
