Forget “Blades of Glory.” Let’s just call it “The 2007 Will Ferrell Project.”

And forget about finding any surprise conclusions in this review; you probably decided long ago whether this would be your must-see event of the weekend.

For the past decade, Mr. Ferrell, perhaps more than any other mainstream comedic talent, has perfected his brand of shtick into a reliable science — a formula that some love and others loathe. His ingredients include a classic institution, an exaggerated hero who takes something about that institution to the extreme, a sidekick or two with equal intensity, and a willingness to push his characters beyond the point of humiliation.

That his flabby physique is so well known to moviegoers is itself a testament to Mr. Ferrell’s methods. He knows his white, pasty gut gets laughs, and if that’s what it takes to get an audience to chuckle, he’s more than happy to oblige … every time.

For anyone familiar with his most recent hits, the reliable punch lines in “Blades of Glory” are easy to predict. Last year, Mr. Ferrell’s “Talladega Nights” poked fun at the NASCAR phenomenon; two years ago it was little league soccer dads in “Kicking and Screaming”; three years ago it was broadcast news in “Anchorman”; four years ago it was the college frat scene in “Old School,” in which Mr. Ferrell jumped between the extremes of a happily married suburban 30-something eager about his weekly trip to Home Depot and the booze-chugging, campus-streaking frat boy.

So it’s easy for audiences to know, even without seeing “Blades of Glory,” whether they will enjoy this mullet-touting macho figure skater — or if the movie will just be too much of the same.

As the perfectly named Chazz Michael Michaels (not just two z’s, but two last names), Mr. Ferrell throws himself headfirst into the part of a figure-skating rock star, playing this male ballerina as a concoction of both Frank the Tank (that’s from “Old School,” for all you “Anchorman” haters) and Ricky Bobby (“Talladega Nights”). As we enter this juiced-up, hypercompetitive skating world (think what “Zoolander” did to modeling or what “Dodgeball” did to, well, dodgeball), we meet Chazz’s nemesis, the young skating prodigy Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder), a soft-spoken, tutu-wearing, effeminate kid wonder.

Adopted as an orphan and genetically enhanced for his sport, MacElroy is the ultimate skating machine. He glides while Chazz pounces, skates from the heart and waves to the crowd while Chazz skates from the gut and shoots pelvic thrusts into the crowd.

The first half of the film is fueled by their feud, which culminates in a huge brawl after the two finish tied for first at the World Championships. Outraged by their public antics, the sport’s governing body bans both skaters from the sport for life, and we chuckle as Chazz and Jimmy are forced to realize they have very little “real world skills” to put on their résumés. Michael Michaels (still funny) soon finds himself chugging booze in a life-size cartoon outfit as he skates in a family-friendly ice show. MacElroy finds work in a skate shop, lacing up new blades for rich young girls who criticize his technique.

So it is an act of both desperation and redemption that they heed Coach’s (Craig T. Nelson) advice and agree to join forces in order to re-enter competitive skating the only way they can: as a pair. Learning to hold hands, practice lifts without grimacing, and fuse MacElroy’s sparkles with Michael Michael’s muscle shirts, they also start refining a top-secret, death-defying skating move never seen before in the hopes of defeating the dynamite brother-sister Van Waldenberg team (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler), who seem like an unbeatable force of nature.

Viewed in total, it’s a “shock and awe” comedy strategy, exhuming the humor in every possible corner of the premise and throwing it onscreen in such a rapid fashion that the jokes don’t really need to sink in; they just need to stick for a few seconds. Through most of film, four separate skits are running alongside one another: The tough guy learning to work with the timid guy; the awkwardness of the all-male skating routine; the fanatical family out to beat new rivals, and the unprecedented move that becomes something of an obsession.

As the film’s five-person writing team digs deeper into its bag of tricks, there’s even a lighthearted bit of romance (involving Jenna Fischer of NBC’s “The Office” in a surprising sex scene) that threatens to tear the two men apart and a high-speed skating chase that segues hilariously between a slick frozen lake and the dry lobby of the skating rink.

Mr. Ferrell has proved, with the surprisingly sweet-natured “Elf” and the downright philosophical “Stranger Than Fiction,” that he’s capable of success in more challenging roles, but he’s clearly having a lot of fun playing with these notions of competition and masculinity.

So much fun, in fact, that he already has two similar projects on the horizon — one that finds him as the coach of a semi-pro basketball team, and another that gives him a competitive stepbrother with whom he fights for his new stepparent’s attention. Two more movies and two more institutions (basketball and family) are checked off the list.

The laughs are lighter in “Blades of Glory,” and more superficial than smart, but they’re just as plentiful, playful, and peculiar as Mr. Ferrell’s followers have come to expect. He followed the recipe to the letter.