Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Good movie!

Good movie!

Good movie!

Good movie!

source: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Liking the first movie a lot, I was looking forward for months the second movie. The trailers and hype built up was huge. I saw it last night and it was awful. No story line, jumps from scene to scene. The jokes weren't funny, and when you do laugh it was minor. Steve's role was stupid as all he does is mumble words. I was happy when it was over and feel bad they ruined a good thing. How it got over a 7 rating here is beyond me. They could have had any story line better than the one they did. It bounced all over so much it was horrible. How about a GNN launch but a battle with another news team for the lead. This was minimal in the movie. Please save your money for a movie well made and an ounce of thought put into it.

That was the first thing I said as I left the cinema. Was that the best they could come up with after all these years? I'm a huge Anchorman fan, but whereas the first one felt fresh and to the point, this one is flabby and overlong. It's not terrible and it did make me laugh a few times, but I expected so much more. The 24 hour news channel is a good hook on which to hang the gags and setpieces but unfortunately Ferrell and McKay don't seem to know what to do with it, so they settle for recycling material from the original. By way of example, the mahoosive news reader fight scene from Anchorman is repeated here; the first time around it was funny and surprising, this time it's lazy and stuffed full of tedious cameos by Will Ferrell's showbiz mates. So much wrong with this film: sidelining Veronica Corningstone; not enough Baxter; a subplot in which Brick gets a girlfriend, no laughs there, it's just odd and creepy; pointless roles for Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear; a recurring thread of racial humour that is cringeworthy at best and at worst offensive. All of which leaves you asking: why, Ron Burgundy, why?!?

Now i never ever have written a review for anything. But this movie was so funny that i got on here created an account just to tell everybody that this movie is by far the funniest film I've seen in the last 5 years. Its legit laugh out loud material. Ron Burgundy stays killin it as usual. If you don't think this movie is funny, then YOU don't know funny. Its like all the reviews saying this movie is so over the top it had too many jokes it was a disappointment is like going to the strip club and then saying that it had to many boobies inside and it was over the top and a disappointment. I just don't get how anybody could not be comically satisfied after watching this film.

**Before I write my review, I want to make it known that I went into Anchorman 2 expecting over the topness, funny one liners, plenty of gags, and generally having low expectations given the trailers and over advertisement.** Despite having already low expectations, I was STILL disappointed. Happy Days coined the term "jumping the shark," generally used for a television show that is declining in quality and attempts to use an outrageous plot device to keep viewer's interest. Anchorman 2 has not only jumped the shark, but it has given us a modern update to that term, "Bottle Feeding the shark." Not wanting to believe the movie could be so atrocious, I am actually trying to convince myself the shark feeding sequence was the film poking fun at itself and realizing it was terrible. If that was the case, it's a hilarious satirical movie. If not, it's a steaming pile of dung, which I suspect is the case. THE GOOD: The celebrity cameos were mildly, and I mean very mildly entertaining but they came far too late to save the movie. A few laugh out loud sequences (the first 30 minutes). Ummmmm....Nothing else really. :/ THE BAD: Just not a funny movie despite trying so hard. Forced humor and a truly awful script written by Will Ferrell. It seems like Will Ferrell sat in a focus group of adolescent males aged 12-17 and put whatever they deemed "funny" into his script. Plenty of * and * jokes for you potty humor enthusiasts out there! The black jokes and black dinner sequence were clichéd and boring. Everyone has heard a white person or comedian imitate a black person thousands of times and seeing Will Ferrell do it is not much funnier. I'm not easily offended, but more easily offended people would feel uncomfortable with these scenes in the movie. No quotable quotes. Anyone who saw Anchorman #1 can at LEAST rattle off a, "Stay Classy San Diego," or a "60% of the time it works every time." quote. No such luck here; there are no memorable quotes or sayings in this one. There was also a feeble attempt to recreate the "sex panther" scene with Brian's secret drawer, but it was forced and stupid. You can bet that there will be a product line of Anchorman condoms coming out though as a result... The film randomly tried to get serious with its whole, "The American people deserve the truth, etc." line at the end. I agree with the sentiment, but it was poorly placed in the movie and came off as a forced message. Bad script, unfunny characters, and the same tired situations are basically what sunk this film. Nothing good about it in all honesty. THE UGLY: Brick aka Steve Carell. Straight up. He was tolerable in the first film because his randomness was well timed and just so out of the blue that all you could do was laugh. In the sequel it is flat out annoying. I have never felt so much disdain for a fictional character in my life. From the first "death" scene to the last "marriage" scene I despised every second of Steve Carell's screen time. Whoever thought to give Brick a love interest should be exiled from film making and possibly planet earth for all of eternity. I guess it was their poor attempt to give Brick's character another dimension other than just seeming like a retard the whole time. Ugh, his love interest was a mix of Brick and Kristen Wiig's character from Bridesmaids. To sum it up a combo of awkward and ANNOYING. If it weren't for Brick being reintroduced in this film, I'd probably give it 4 MAYBE even 5 stars, but I actually felt mentally abused by how annoying his character was. Long story short, I could probably write a novel on how awful this film was, but this review satisfies my need to vent. If you value your time and don't want to waste it, do NOT see this film. If you must see it; Don't waste $10 or even a matinée admission price on this garbage, just red box it.

Although there are a few moments of laughter, most of the film felt as if it was improvised by actors who think a little too highly of themselves. They probably think that they are so funny that whatever comes out of the mouths just HAS to be funny. Kristen Wiig was totally unfunny...she did what seemed to be a SNL character, that, unfortunately, had not yet been fully developed. Steve Carell gibberish was worse that ever...I guess he felt that it would be hilarious if he really went over the top. Overall, it felt like this movie was thrown together without a real working script. They had a legitimate good idea (the theme of how real news reporting morphed into reporting about unimportant events) and decided to wing it during filming...and of course, since they feel they are such brilliant comedians, they believed they could pull it off!