Reaction: Blades of Glory

Went to the movie meetup.com group last night with low expectations. You know I'm one of those people who pretends they're more hi-brow than they actually are. I groan at most comedy films these days... but Blades of Glory really delivered.

I have a love-hate relationship with "Stupid." Stupid is when characters do things on screen that are nonsensical and purely made up to draw a laugh from the audience because of its sheer unexplained silliness. The film opens with some Stupid: John Heder's character is performing his figure-skating routine in a "peacock" motif and suddenly starts flapping his arms like a bird in flight (the commentator's call it the "peacock flap" or something as tho it were an actual move in figure skating). It's not particularly funny, it's just "Stupid" - it's a very weak attempt at humour. Luck would have it however that the writers managed to throw in every possible joke relating to sexual innuendo (why not? we're talking about two men pairing up in spandex here) in the world. And not only that, they also managed to cram the film even further with physical slapstick not seen since Top Secret! or Airplane!

In fact, thanks to the clever writing, the film manages to overcome even Will Farrel's innate "Stupid-ness." That's got to earn it a thumbs-up if anything.

On a minor side note: I also wanted to point out that the film handles figure skating the way Zoolander handled the fashion industry. You're not entirely sure if it's a pure spoof or if it is paying tribute to the subject. Cameos from actual figure-skating stars abound (Americans of course). And the finale set in Montreal actually is filmed in Montreal (in several easily recognizeable locales around town).