With the 70s behind him, San Diego’s top rated newsman, Ron Burgundy, returns to take New York’s first 24-hour news channel by storm.
The Adam McKay and Will Ferrell partnership is the gift that keeps on giving! What a team these two gentlemen make when they collaborate, bringing us comedy classics such as The Other Guys (2010), Step Brothers (2008) and the original Anchorman (2004), they seem unable to do wrong! The original Anchorman movie was the brainstorm of Will Ferrell, although the original script consisted of a planeload of news anchors who crash in the mountains and discover that the plane which they collided was carrying monkeys and martial arts equipment, leading to a battle between cannibalistic newsmen and star-throwing monkeys, thank god for the organic evolution of the modern day movie script and rewrites! But what emerged was Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, a movie that would fast become a cult classic then explode in popularity.
The original movie and indeed Will Ferrell himself are an acquired taste. You really have to understand and enjoy the type of humour they deliver or this won’t be for you. Anchorman is Will Ferrell, it is his style and always has been since his SNL days. Assuming you, the reader, have seen the original Anchorman (2004) as part of the $90 million it recouped worldwide to date I will jump to this movie. Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) find themselves as co-anchors at Channel 4 news and everything is seemingly going great, until, Ron finds himself fired from the news network by his boss Mack Harken (Harrison Ford) and Veronica is bumped up to the prime time slot. Understandably, Ron is furious which causes a break down in their relationship and is kicked out of their home and leaves Veronica and their son Walter (Judah Nelson) behind. Burgundy, now homeless and unemployed is asked to be part of a new and unprecedented 24 hour news network but is told he needs a news team. This sets the stage for the original news team to reunite and change the face of news reporting as we know it.
Anchorman 2 is approximately 119mins long and struggles at times to carry the demand of the time frame, seeming a bit forced at the start but resolves itself organically. The advantage the original movie had over this production was the lack of expectational weight, people expect a lot from this movie and after nearly 10 years of die hard fans waiting, the pressure is on. Does the movie deliver? I would be lying if I said it didn’t, but it repeats and re-stages a lot of the original scenes and jokes from its predecessor e.g. News Team Gang War. Ferrell’s unusual jokes and anecdotes about everyday life are just hilarious and will have you in stitches. The news team are back at their best and you will notice the character of Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) who fans loved from the first movie has a lot more screen time and engages in a romantic sub plot to the main story. Comedy fans will love the aforementioned News Team Gang War version in this production as its the opportunity for Ferrell and McKay to get some of their famous friends in modern comedy and culture on the big screen including: Sacha Baron Cohen, Kirsten Dunst, Tina Fay, Harrison Fay, Greg Kinnear, Liam Neeson, Kanye West, Vince Vaughn, John C. Reilly and excitingly Jim Carrey. Could the dream movie with Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell ever happen outside of the SNL studio? Fingers crossed.
In summary, Anchorman 2 is very funny but encompasses a lot of the original movies jokes. The storyline is weak but the weight of the movie comes from the one liners and interesting exchanges. Well worth a look, Watch it with the guys, its always funnier.
FutureProof Movie Review Score: 7.0
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