Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (**½)
Directed
by: Adam McKay
Starring:
Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Christina Applegate,
Meagan Good, James Marsden, Kristen Wiig, Fred Willard, Chris Parnell, Greg
Kinnear, Harrison Ford
Seen:
February 14th 2014
**½
Out of ****
I
only saw the first Anchorman almost in passing on TV quite a while after it was
released, and while I found it funny, and while parts undoubtedly stuck in my
mind over the years, it doesn’t stand out as a landmark in comedy to me. It was
funny however, and it did spawn an official sequel 9 years after the fact, in
answer to the cult following it has gained over the years. There was a straight
to DVD “spiritual” sequel in 2004 called Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie,
assembled from additional footage shot while making Anchorman, as entire subplots
were cut in the editing room. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues almost ignores
the existence of that movie though, and continues the story (legend) a few
years after the end of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
Ron
Burgundy (Ferrell) and Veronica Corningstone (Applegate) are co-anchors for a
large news station in New York, but their boss, the very successful Mack Tannen
(Ford), calls them in one evening and announces his retirement. He promotes
Veronica to his position and fires Ron for his continuous gaffes on air and
off. Ron thinks he is the best thing since even before sliced bread, and in his
inability to deal with the situation, he leaves Veronica and his son, and
becomes a drifter with trouble holding on to a job. He is shown working at Sea
World, as a celebrity announcer, but is fired after being extremely drunk and seriously
ruining a show, just after he fails to hang himself. In this state, he is
approached by GNN (Global News Network), and offered a job on a 24-hour news
channel. Cue the usual 24-hour news jokes for a bit, and Ron accepts. But only
if he can get his old team together: Champ Kind (Koechner) owns a fried chicken
store (secretly not-so-chicken though), Brian Fontana (Rudd) is a famous cat
photographer, and Brick Tamland (Carell) is presumed dead but shows up at his
own funeral. At GNN they are slotted in on a low-rated late night timeslot, while
professional enemy Jack Lime (Marsden) gets primetime. Ron discovers that his
new boss is a black lady, Linda Jackson (Good) – which is perfect fodder for a
bunch of jokes that, with all the other comedy on display here, and while not
all equally successful or side-splitting, make for a relatively funny movie.
Anchorman
2 is fun and funny, but not as much as the first movie. There are returns to
sequences from the first movie, most notably the battle in the park, and the
list of cameos for this movie is truly impressive, I would love to have
witnessed that behind the scenes. Ron is as ridiculous as we remember him, with
his team as strangely oblivious to the world as can be. The big stumbling block
and eventual liberation from it in this plot is a bit far-fetched, but still
gets played to some good comedy from Will Ferrell, who somehow manages to keep
a decade-old character relatively fresh. Anchorman 2 is for those who saw the
first (two) movie(s), and still want more, but it will probably not be as
enjoyable to complete newcomers. See it if you’re a fan, you are definitely
going to get a kick out of it, I did.
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