Blades of Glory

News flash: figure skating is gay. Be prepared to suffer all manner of gags about girly men in satin outfits when approaching Blades of Glory because that’s all it really has in its arsenal. And aside from the political distastefulness of such jokes, they’re really, really tired. Will Ferrell and Jon Heder play the bad boy and good son, respectively, of professional ice-skating. Foolishly, the bitter rivals get into a fight on the podium and are subsequently banned for life from singles competition. But a loophole allows them to compete in pairs competition and thus they enter the nationals together. Men plus unitards equals rolling in the aisles? Not quite. Leaving aside the matter of its boring obsession with dudes gripping each other on ice, there just aren’t any good jokes here — not from the leads, not from the evil brother/sister reigning champions (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) and not from the predictable romance between Heder and the heavies’ put-upon sister (Jenna Fischer). Everyone is trying way too hard and yet not trying nearly hard enough. One can see the pride on the participants’ faces as they say what they believe to be funny stuff but the script’s actual quality proves them all to be sadly deluded. Extras include a joke-y but not exactly funny "making of” featurette, very unfunny interviews with stalker character Hector, as well as Poehler and Arnett, and a couple of semi-informative clips on the skating training and the insane costumes. Also, there are 20 questions with ex-skater Scott Hamilton, four deleted scenes, a not-nearly-ironic-enough music video by Bo Bice, a gag reel and some alternate takes. A couple of which are better than what made the final cut.