Will Ferrell does not exhibit what you'd call a lithe physique or naturally fawnlike grace. There's a certain lumpiness about him, his hulking frame and height -- qualities more associated with outdoor sculpture than indoor figure skating. He is pottery rather than poetry in motion.

Suzanne Hanover Jon Heder, right, and Will Ferrell form an unlikely partnership on the ice in "Blades of Glory." 'Blades of Glory' Starring: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder. Directors: Will Speck and Josh Gordon. Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language, a comic violent image and some drug references. Web site: http://www.bladesofglorymovie.com/

Toothy Jon Heder is the yin to Will's yang, his diminutive arch-rival on the ice. The two virtuosi display form over function, and attitude galore, in a very funny, sunny satire called "Blades of Glory."

Bigger-than-life Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrell) is the bad boy of blades, playing to the crowd -- especially the chicks -- with the roar of a studio wrestler's greasepaint. Yellow-haired child prodigy Jimmy MacElroy (Heder) is nothing if not poised and vulnerable. (Talent scouts discovered him executing triple-spins on the frozen pond of his orphanage.)

They hate each other's guts and look forward to winning first place in the World Championships. But that event has the worst of all outcomes -- a tie! -- and they're no Barbra Streisand and Kate Hepburn. Instead of jointly accepting, they get into a monumental brawl before thousands of shocked fans.

Hauled before the Intergalactic Skating Court, Chazz and Jimmy are both stripped of their medals and banned from the sport for life. It's downhill from there: Chazz takes to drink and carnival costume gigs. Jimmy is reduced to shoe salesman, abandoned even by his old stalkers.

"It's embarrassing stalking a has-been," says one, who suggests the boys get around their ban by doing pair instead of solo skating.

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Hitherto, such pairs were always male-female. Why not become the first competitive male-male pair in figure-skating history? Jimmy the blond Aryan teams up with Chazz the drunken cowboy -- Siegfried and Roy Rogers, of sorts -- "as if figure skating weren't gay enough already," someone observes.

But they're straight. And they go straight into rehearsing a new routine whose piece de resistance is the legendary Iron Lotus. Its most delicate maneuver is the breathtakingly dangerous "crotch lift," last attempted in North Korea (where a woman was accidentally beheaded by an errant skate).

It'll have to be good to beat their chief competitors, the villainous brother-sister team of Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg (real-life hubby-and-wife Will Arnett and Amy Poehler), of the legendary Van Waldenberg skating dynasty. (Their parents died in a tragic accident, but the siblings were back on the ice within hours of the funeral.) Heder, meanwhile, woos their youngest sib (Jenna Fischer) with the surefire pick-up line, "Wanna get a Sno-Cone sometime?"

Chazz and Jimmy aren't the only male pair here. The directing pair of Will Speck and Josh Gordon comes skating out of the world of TV commercials and takes dual credit for pacing the spoofery and skullduggery -- as well as the absurdly lavish action -- briskly.

O, the pageantry, the backstage drama, the surfeit of sequins!

Not all of it works, but Heder and Ferrell sure do. The former, already a beloved cult hero from his "Napoleon Dynamite" performance, will become more of one after this transfer of his puzzled peevish persona to the ice. (Talk about occupational hazards: Heder broke an ankle during filming, which had to be delayed.) Ferrell fans who cherish Buddy the Elf and Ricky Bobby will not be disappointed by Chazz.

There's more slapstick than wit, but the sheer incongruity of the star duo is an ongoing yuk in itself.

My favorite escapade of these ice capades? The Van Waldenbergs' tasteless Marilyn Monroe routine, complete with pill-popping suicidal finale.

And don't try the "crotch lift" at home.