I'm not sure whether it's more painful to watch Jon Heder try to act, as he does here, or watch him do nothing, as he does in "School for Scoundrels."Either way, whatever he does is a painful reminder that he got lucky with "Napoleon Dynamite" and eventually he's going to be relegated to doing Avis Rental Car commercials or some such thing.

That he's paired in a romantic relationship with Jenna Fischer from "The Office" must have been somebody's idea of a joke. Heder plays an ice skating champion who teams up with Will Ferrell's Chazz Michael Michaels to win gold after both skaters are banned for life and discover the loophole that allows them to compete, but only together as the first ever male-male team in pairs competition.

Fischer plays Katie Van Waldenberg, wallflower sister of skaters Stranz (Will Arnett) and Fairchild (Amy Poehler). Watching Jenna try to break from the range supposedly limiting her in "The Office" is kind of like watching a farm tractor try to win the Indy 500. Poor Jenna is stiffer than a death row inmate at a strip club. She makes Matt LeBlanc look like Marlon Brando.

Chazz and Jimmy are rivals until a post-event fight sends them in front of the skating federation and gets them banned from the sport. As a team, however, they come together to get around the ban and challenge the Van Waldenbergs. Many homophobic jokes follow, kind of like thousands of mice following the Pied Piper to Tim Hardaway's house.

We get scene after scene where either Chazz or Jimmy has to put his face in and/or touch the other's groin and there follows after that much grimacing. Truly, it is humor at its finest. Then again, I suppose ice skating is not exactly known for its manliness. Men and leotards just don't mix.

Part of the mistake made by directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck (and incidentally, whenever you need two directors for a film, something is almost always wrong) is that screen time is given to Heder at the expense of Ferrell. Just as a practical matter, this is idiocy since Heder's fans have all the box-office power of a single tub of popcorn.

Did I expect more from this film? Of course I didn't. It delivered. Then again, I expect I could find the same level of comedic sophistication written on the bathroom stalls in a number of elementary schools.

"Blades of Glory" skates on a lot of thin ice.