Total Recall: Will Ferrell's Best Movies
We count down the best-reviewed films from the Land of the Lost star.
5. Blades of Glory
Love him or hate him, it's hard to deny that Will Ferrell has a knack for finding (or writing) scripts built around concepts so ridiculous you can't help but laugh -- and 2007's Blades of Glory, a comedy about a pair of competitive skaters who are forced to form an ice dancing team after an awards ceremony brawl leaves them barred from men's singles, is a perfect case in point. Ferrell's brand of fearlessly stupid comedy is perfect for any script that requires him to spend time in a unitard, and Jon Heder's sleepy-eyed hostility made him a worthy foil for his louder, hairier co-star. Although Ferrell had already done more than one sports-themed comedy, Blades of Glory still packed enough laughs to satisfy most critics -- it earned a 69 percent Tomatometer rating, thanks to reviews from writers like the Hollywood Reporter's Michael Rechtshaffen, who praised it as "one of those rare comedies that puts a goofy smile on your face with the premise alone, and keeps it planted there right until its wacky finale."
4. Dick
By the late 1990s, Ferrell had emerged as the next Saturday Night Live cast member to make the jump to movies -- both within the SNL family, in projects like Superstar and A Night at the Roxbury, and also in non SNL-affiliated fare, such as the first two Austin Powers movies, the independently released The Suburbans, and 1999's Dick. Supporting Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams in this 1970s-set comedy about a pair of teenage girls that exposes the nefarious deeds of Richard Nixon (Dan Hedaya), Ferrell appears as a bumbling, thin-skinned version of Bob Woodward opposite Bruce McCulloch's equally incompetent Carl Bernstein. Though the allegedly investigative duo is more interested in insulting each other than cracking a story (in one memorable exchange, Ferrell tells McCulloch that he smells "like cabbage"), they're eventually pointed in the right direction by Dunst and Williams; similarly, although audiences seemed not to know what to make of Dick, critics applauded it for being, in the words of Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum, "a gaily funny, shrewdly inventive satire."
3. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Part buffoonish comedy, part NASCAR fable, Talladega Nights sped past all the cries of "not another sports comedy" to an impressive $162 million worldwide gross -- and, more importantly, a 73 percent Tomatometer rating and Certified Fresh status. Though the none-too-bright Ricky Bobby was essentially just another variation of the same character Ferrell had been playing for years, Talladega proved that character could still be funny -- starting with the trailer and TV spots, in which an underwear-and-helmet-clad Ricky engages in a panicked run around a racetrack, screaming for Tom Cruise to "use your witchcraft on me to get the fire off me." In the words of Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, Talladega Nights is "the sort of cheerfully asinine comedy that twists your arm until you submit. So, to Will Ferrell -- clown, freak, bully -- I scream, 'Uncle!'"
2. Stranger than Fiction
For many comics, branching out from lighthearted comedies to more dramatic fare is seen as a rite of passage; Bill Murray had The Razor's Edge, Jim Carrey started nudging away from straight comedy with The Cable Guy and The Truman Show, and even Dane Cook has popped up in serious films such as Mr. Brooks and Dan in Real Life. For Will Ferrell, the chance to flex his dramatic muscle came with Stranger than Fiction, a 2006 dramedy about an IRS auditor who slowly realizes that the events taking place in his life are the result of an unseen author who may be leading him to a rather unhappy ending. It's the sort of heady premise that Ferrell's detractors would say he lacks the depth or breadth to carry -- but they'd be wrong, as evidenced by Fiction's Certified Fresh status and 73 percent Tomatometer rating. Though he was certainly surrounded with top talent -- such as a supporting cast that included Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, and Maggie Gyllenhaal -- Ferrell's performance was singled out by critics like Lisa Kennedy of the Denver Post, who wrote that he "delivers a moving and surprisingly delicate -- though not so surprisingly funny -- turn as the lonesome bureaucrat bedeviled by a voice only he hears."
1. Elf
You could put pretty much any 6'3" actor in an elf suit and get some chuckles, but casting Will Ferrell as an orphan raised at the North Pole -- by Bob "Papa Elf" Newhart, no less -- was a stroke of comic genius. What tends to get lost in all the shouting and inappropriate nudity is that Ferrell excels at playing gentle, childlike men whose open-heartedness is exceeded only by their oafishness, and in Elf's Buddy Hobbs, he found a role that perfectly highlighted that skill. And the casting genius didn't end there -- Elf also includes inspired turns by Newhart in an elf's cap, Ed Asner as Santa, James Caan as Ferrell's gruff, exasperated biological father, and, for Pete's sake, Leon Redbone as a talking snowman. Singling out holiday movies for critical beatdowns has becoming something of an annual tradition, but in this case, our top scribes were left filled with holiday cheer -- such as Roger Ebert, who beamed, "this is one of those rare Christmas comedies that has a heart, a brain and a wicked sense of humor, and it charms the socks right off the mantelpiece."
Take a look through Ferrell's complete filmography, as well as the rest of our Total Recall archives. And don't forget to check out the reviews for Land of the Lost.
Finally, here's a classic from SNL in which Ferrell shows how much he cares about the American automotive industry:
Bigbrother on 06-3-2009 06:26 PM
Can't believe Blades of Glory got better reviews than Anchorman. Jon Heder must have a more loyal following than one would expect.