Review: Anchorman 2

Hotly anticipated since rumours of its existence surfaced years ago, Anchorman 2 has a lot to live up to. The first Anchorman introduced the ridiculous news anchor buffoon Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his loudly-dressed team. It became enough of a cult hit to put it on a pantheon with Withnail and I and The Big Lebowski. The crazed 70s style, idiotic philosophical musings, illegal aftershaves and jazz flute performances provided fans with enough quotations to keep them happy for years. Thus, this sequel was released with a substantial responsibility to viewers.

Having lost his job and wife (Christina Applegate), Ron Burgundy hits rock bottom. Fired from presenting the dolphin show at Sea World for gross misconduct, he fails even to commit suicide. Luckily Ron is offered a lifeline by an agent for GNN, the first 24 hour news network, seeking to recruit him. Anchorman 2 then treads a well-established narrative path. Burgundy travels to San Diego to reunite the old gang. Sickly smooth Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) is a successful cat photographer, redneck jock Champ Kind (David Koechner) runs a bat-frying chicken shop and Brick Tamland (Steve Carrell) thinks he’s dead. The team then battle for viewers, partake in professional rivalries and spout nonsense. Plot twists include temporary blindness and falling-outs followed by get-togethers.

What this Anchorman has is a conscious satirical undercurrent. It traces the birth of ubiquitous news channels, mixing with it the rise of cheap tabloid sensationalism. ‘Don’t just have a good evening,’ Ron declares after reporting on another live car chase, ‘have an American evening’. I thought this was all a little eager. The original Anchorman was satirical, it just didn’t go about it in an obvious way. Based on a real newsreader, Ron Burgundy was a laughable throwback to 70s alpha-masculinity, with misogyny and moustaches juxtaposed brilliantly. I mean, this is a guy who pompously declared 'I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany'. Critics became rather obsessed with the plot and satire, but Will Ferrell comedies are supposed to entertain and draw laughter. That alone is what Anchorman 2 should be judged on.

A lot of this film is simply to please fans. The whole thing reads like an ode to Anchorman. Jazz flute, Baxter the dog fighting carnivores and a large news team battle are funny because they are familiar. In the first, they were funny because they were original. It wasn’t that the jokes weren’t amusing, they just weren’t amusing enough. There is therefore not the same high yield of quotable lines. Paul Rudd should have been used more – after all, he is the man who delivered the statistic ‘60 percent of the time, it works every time’. There were some outstanding moments, like an RV crash where we see the characters colliding in slow motion (moments before: ‘why have you got a bag of bowling balls and a box of snakes in the back?’ ‘Oh that’s a long story. Let me just go over to this deep fat fryer I’ve had installed.’).

The Anchorman franchise loses something through its retelling: any novelty factor has, of course, worn out. Bereft of enough comedy to make this venture equal to its predecessor, Anchorman 2 is nonetheless completely funny 60% of the time.

'Don't act like you're not impressed.'