Blades of Glory

Two rival figure skaters brawl their way into lifetime bans from the sport, then reluctantly team up to save their highly and oppositely precious careers. It’s probably the best mainstream-movie application of Jon Heder’s delicate charms that we can now ask for, and pretty much standard-issue Will Ferrell, as the usual shameless affable champion of the under-dignified. Funny, absolutely, but between these two personas there’s just a bit too much sweetness, which the movie doesn’t help by sending up as fruitiness. Indeed, Blades of Glory imposes on its sunny stars the faintest rink-air chill of homophobic aggression—but presumably with the hope of winking and goofing it into some kind of submission. This really shouldn’t have taken five writers and two directors, especially considering the splendor costume designer Julie Weiss achieves all by herself. But it’s not bad for such a thoroughly unitarded concept.