Of ice and men

Will Ferrell's latest haphazard treat, "Blades of Glory," is a farce set in the world of competitive figure skating. The film is quick, painless, and more than a little brave: not since John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, and the aerobicizers in "Perfect" has so much Lycra been so abused for our pleasure.

Ferrell plays a boozy, womanizing skating star called Chazz Michael Michaels , who teams up with his blonder, more fey rival, Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder ), to conquer pairs competition, after a fight gets them banned from male singles for life.

These two have less than six months to get into medal-winning shape for this movie's version of the Winter Olympics. They train in a large Denver storage locker with Craig T. Nelson as their coach (he's doing a crusty riff on his old ABC sitcom). For dance instruction, they turn to a patient choreographer (Romany Malco ) whose studio is full of annoyed black dancers. The duo's biggest challenge -- after adjusting to crotch lifts -- is mastering a literal death-spiral routine called Iron Lotus. It decapitated half of the Korean pair that previously tried it.

While Michaels and MacElroy practice, their American rivals, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg , a flamboyantly sleazy brother-sister team, played by Will Arnett and Amy Poehler (who are husband and wife), manipulate their drab sister Katie (Jenna Fischer ) into spying. This is Boris and Natasha stuff, but it's often very funny. Their skate routines are funnier. One is a thug number to Marky Mark that, hilariously, has Arnett in a pair of Timberland skates.

Not every moment scores. A romance between Katie and MacElroy gives the picture some of its flatter scenes. Fischer plays the indecisive Pam on NBC's "The Office," and her comic strengths and Heder's are their reactions to other comedians. Heder often looks like he's smelled something awful. And Fischer's m.o. is coquettish embarrassment. Together, they make as much sense as two baseball catchers on the field at the same time.

As long as it's near the ice, "Blades of Glory," which was written by four people and directed by two, sticks a lot of its landings. The bit players are well used, especially Nick Swardson as an effeminate stalker and William Fichtner as Jimmy's spiteful sponsor and adoptive father.

The movie itself is not the merciless send-up of figure skating the ads make it appear to be. (For one thing, Johnny Weir has worn nuttier costumes than almost anything that appears here.) Like "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," Ferrell's NASCAR party from last year, "Blades of Glory" embraces a sport and, in its own fantastical way, dares that sport to open its mind.

"Talladega Nights" made us take (somewhat) seriously the gay French driver played by Sacha Baron Cohen -- at least as Ferrell's comedic and athletic equal.

Michaels and MacElroy may just be doing D.B. Sweeney and Moira Kelly in 1992's he-skates-she-skates romantic comedy "The Cutting Edge." But their movie forces you to think it ridiculous that the sport has no same-sex pairs. This might be a moral matter (dudes together on ice?) or just one of simple physics: Can a dude throw-jump another dude? "Blades of Glory" makes it seem possible, regardless.

And the fact that skaters Peggy Fleming , Dorothy Hamill , Nancy Kerrigan , Sasha Cohen , and Brian Boitano have cameos and that Scott Hamilton commentates on the movie's absurd routines with his usual melodrama feels like a show of support.

Strictly speaking, of course, Michaels and MacElroy aren't gay. Yet unlike "Wild Hogs," the movie doesn't care if you think they are. Not that anyone here seems to care about something as mundane as orientation. "Blades of Glory" is just gayish, with an even more outlandish finale than "Talladega Nights."

Somehow Ferrell has become our chief satirist of masculinity. And with that NASCAR movie and this new one, he's turned Hollywood's garden variety homophobia into giddy homophilia, giving the world a pair of movies any queen could enjoy alongside his frat-house buddies.