Monday, January 6, 2014

Movies: Anchorman 2


Score:  ***1/2 out of ***** (C+)

Long Story Short:  Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and co. return for the highly anticipated - and highly marketed - Anchorman 2.  All the old friends are back plus some new ones, but unfortunately the film serves to prove the saying that you can have too much of (and try too hard to make) a good thing.  Ron and co. are fun, but it's over the top in an overly scripted way, lacking the original's cleverness and spontaneity.  Disappointing.


The review for the last of my highly-anticipated 2013 films arrives this week, and there will be at least one, possibly two more new reviews before my annual movie review.  I've started to get a peak at what's coming in 2014, and so far I haven't seen a lot that gets me too excited - now 2015, that's another story.  We'll get there when we get there, though.  Anyway, when I first saw Anchorman nearly 10 years ago, I liked it a lot.  It wasn't my favorite Will Ferrell (probably my favorite contemporary comedian) film, but it was in the top tier.  As most of you reading this surely know, the film developed a cult status that far surpassed its box office success - "The Legend of Ron Burgundy" was fulfilled.  Of course, I was excited to see what they could come up with when I heard a sequel was coming out.  Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues was directed by Adam McKay and stars Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Christina Applegate, et. al.

You want a plot overview?  Go back and watch the first, then substitute gender competition with adaptation to a new media landscape (aka 24-hour news).  I don't say this in a negative way, but rather because A) it's Anchorman and the plot really doesn't matter and B) I want to give away as little as possible since surprise is such a key ingredient in comedy.

In addition to bringing all the major players back from the first, Anchorman 2 invites a small army of new supporting players and cameos.  Reprising his role as the lead, Ron Burgundy, is of course Will Ferrell.  As much as I like Will, and as much as I like him playing Ron... his performance kind of encapsulates what I felt about the movie as a whole.  He wasn't bad, but the unique energy, spontaneity, and excitement he brought to the first are strangely suppressed if not absent.  He's still fun but rather than being "the Ron Burgundy", he feels more like an ordinary comic lead in the sequel.  Steve Carell, playing the idiot Brick, has a significantly bigger role this time.  Carell/Brick was hilarious in the first, but seeing this perhaps it was better to keep him a fringe player.  The parts focusing on him are some of the funniest in this film, but they contribute to making the film too off the wall.  To complete the old News Team, Paul Rudd is once again great, although his role is as small as in the first; and David Koechner is still pretty funny, but they make his character a little too loony.

Christina Applegate returns as Ron's wife Veronica and fellow news anchor.  She gets a much, much smaller role here to make room for the new people; she's really here for the plot (such as it is) rather than for comedy.  Most of the new roles are those from the new 24-hour broadcast network ("GNN").  Best is Kristen Wiig; she's my favorite female comedian right now.  All I will say about her role is that she has the good fortune to meet Brick.  Also featured are Meagan Good as GNN manager Linda and James Marsden as hot-shot news host Jack.  Meagan is quite good, and goes toe-to-toe with Ferrell several times during the film; her part is one of the film's strongest elements.  Marsden's Jack, however, is a fairly lazy part primarily used for one big but not particularly funny joke.  Finally, there are a lot - a shocking number, really - of cameos.  I hope you haven't spoiled them for yourself if you haven't seen it yet, but I won't be giving them away here.

Anchorman 2 is about as blunt a movie as I've seen in the last several years.  I don't mean that as a positive or a negative, but it has just one goal for every second of its run time:  to make you laugh.  Thanks to that determined, relentless mission, it did make me laugh a decent number of times.  The problem is that Anchorman 2 was not made as a smart bomb in addition to the carpet bomb.  The sequel recycles some of the most famous scenes from the original, and it also comes up with a few clever new ideas of its own.  None of that is necessarily problematic - unfortunately, Anchorman 2 completely whiffs on the tone of the original - a pleasantly spontaneous, generally good-natured but tastefully potty-mouthed (is that possible?  If so, it was), mostly chuckle-producing but the hilarious parts sucker punched to maximum effect.  Anchorman 2 tries so, so hard to make you laugh hysterically every single minute of the film, and most of the jokes are a strange combination of too scripted yet not polished enough.

***

This is a difficult film to review.  First of all, for the first time in a long time I had an unpleasant theater experience (not my local theater!) with the people right behind me talking through significant portions of it.  So it's possible I missed a few good jokes and/or didn't appreciate some as much I should have.  I also love Will Ferrell and perhaps had too high of expectations for this film.  Still, I was disappointed enough that I was determined to watch the original Anchorman again to see how big the differences really were.  I concluded that the differences were substantial.  The original felt much more organic, fresher, smarter, and - the biggest indicator - funnier.  Not to mention, it had a sensible hour-and-a-half running time as opposed to the sequel's two hours.  Anchorman 2 isn't all bad, not by a long shot.  I think they had a great premise, the core is all back and they're really fun (even if they aren't given/give as good of material).  And a second viewing may also improve my opinion.  But this should have been much better.

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