Original, funny, clever, quotable were all words you could use to describe the original Anchorman movie. Un-Original, not funny, stupid and excluding one quote about dolphins, unquotable are all words that can be used to describe Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.
Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and David Koechner all return as your favourite news crew and find themselves fronting the first ever 24 hour news station. With new found fame things start to get out of control for Ron Burgundy and he struggles with being a dad and husband. Coupled with a finale that sees most of the movie’s budget spent on cameos, from Jim Carrey to Tina Fey, Anchorman 2 has certainly forgotten its roots, and more importantly, forgotten how to be funny and entertaining.
Predominately its the story thats the problem here because there really is little story and when Ron’s accident happens it only seems like its tacked on to drag out the movie another 20 minutes. And dragged out this is. One of the original’s highlights was Brick “I Love Lamp” Tamland. The character was idolised, so Will Ferrell and Adam McKay decided it would be a great idea to have more Brick. And we have so much more Brick here that you could build a wall with. No longer is Brick loveable and iconic, instead he is annoying and completely over used. The cliché “too much of a good thing” comes to mind. Most of the scenes in fact, are nothing but tacked on, with little flow from one to the other and tragically, very little humour. From bottle feeding a shark to…..actually I can’t remember anything else from the movie, its that unmemorable, nothing will make you laugh. You may find yourself having the occasional smirk, but thats it.
Unlike the original movie, Anchorman 2 tries so, so hard to be funny but it falls flat on its ass every single time and in the process is just plain annoying and stupid.I’m sure on set things most have seemed hilarious, but for me, and the audience I saw it with, I counted five, barely audible laughs from the cinema during its near two hour running time.
Having loved the original, I’d really like to have something positive to say about this, but there really isn’t anything good to say. Its a pointless movie that will exploit fans of the original, and surely the amount of publicity that went on for this should tell you all you need to know.
Anchorman 2 is certainly one news story that should have never made the main bulletin!
