CityLife

DVD review: Blades Of Glory (12)

90 mins, Paramount Home Entertainment, Comedy, also available to buy. Starring: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Craig T. Nelson, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Jenna Fischer, William Fichtner, Nick Swardson.

AT the conclusion of the world figure skating championships, sworn rivals Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Heder) clash on the winner's podium and are subsequently stripped of their medals and banned from the sport for life.

Thanks to his deranged stalker Hector (Swardson), who proudly declares, "I really want to cut off your skin and wear it to my birthday," Jimmy learns of a loophole in the skating rulebook: he can compete in the pairs event. Aided by his coach (Nelson), Jimmy reluctantly works with Chazz to form the world's first same sex skating partnership, competing against current champions Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg (Arnett, Poehler).

Tempers and sequins soon fly... Ferrell plays to type, essaying another loud, oafish, chauvinistic loner, described effusively as "an ice-devouring sex tornado". His pelvis-thrusting, hip-swivelling theatrics become tiresome before the show-stopping final dance routine.

Comic foil

Thankfully co-star Heder is an excellent comic foil as the shy, sensitive type, who lets people skate all over him. Arnett and Poehler's pantomime villains are starved of decent one-liners and the romantic subplot is pure slush.

The four screenwriters are on painfully thin ice in the opening half hour, struggling to develop the characters in any detail away from the rink. But once their unlikely double-act slips into the eye-catching costumes, Blades Of Glory twists and spins to great comic heights, allowing the leads to perform death-defying moves with a little help from seamless computer effects.

Directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck ensure that as long as the cast is on the ice, the film doesn't put a foot wrong.

DVD Extras: Return To Glory: The Making Of Blades featurette, Celebrities On Thin Ice featurette, Cooler Than Ice: The Super-Sexy Costumes Of Skating featurette, Arnett And Poehler - A Family Affair featurette, 20 Questions With Scott Hamilton, Hector: Portrait Of A Psychofan featurette, Moviephone Unscripted with Will Ferrell, Jon Heder And Will Arnett, deleted scenes, alternative takes, gag reel, Bo Bice Blades Of Glory music video, MTV interstitials, six photo galleries, theatrical trailer.

Buy this DVD from Amazon.