Staying true to the original’s colours, “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” starts out with absurd humour: Ron Burgundy being chased by a shark. But that’s not how the story begins, it’s just how the film begins; our story starts in New York, at the latter end of 1980. Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) gets fired from his reporting gig, and, three months later, he is offered a spot on an innovative news channel called GNN, which is going to be the first ever 24-hour news channel. Ron has to get the news team back together where he reunites with Champ Kind (David Koechner), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell). Together, they will change the face of broadcast journalism without even realizing it.
“Anchorman 2″ is another very good collaboration between Director Adam McKay and star Will Ferrell. It might not be as good as the original (as it follows a storyline that is very similar to that film), but it still brings about some very successful and consistent laugh-out-loud moments. Ron gets too big of a head sometimes, and the story teaches that important people can re-route his life and show him the way. These certain people are his ex-wife Veronica Corningstone (whom he splits up with when she gets a promotion), and his son Walter (Judah Nelson), who is annoying and cheesy. He gets a few chuckles, but that doesn’t make up for his crappy presence.
It seems to me Walter is in the film so it doesn’t feel so familiar to the first one, but the truth is he just bloats the plot too much. The film is a minute shy of two hours, and it’s too long. His presence is with good intention from writers McKay and Ferrell, but it’s a misstep, because there shouldn’t be cuteness in a film that has so much bizarrely funny humour. It’s still fairly friendlier than an average comedy as it’s PG-13 and only one use of the f-bomb. Additionally, “Anchorman 2” has some great satire of the over-saturated news market because of all the stations it has, which enables the flick to have a lot of cameos that are alone worth the admission price.
James Mardsen portrays the villain of this film, practically being the new rival, one who replaces Vince Vaughn of the first. Ron’s ego is also an enemy to himself. His relationships with others are funny, like his African-American boss Linda Jackson (Meagan Good). If you thought it was challenging for him to have a woman co-anchoring with him in the first, now he’s working for a female black person! Sweet Odin’s raven! Suffice to say, racism is featured here and there, but it’s handled lightly and in comedic ways. Anyway, Ron is consistently funny, even when his ego is huge, because Ferrell is great at being a cocky a-hole. The supporting characters are still pretty awesome. Brian Fantana is still the sex fiend he has always been, and Champ Kind is pretty good, but he’s rather hit-or-miss for me. Brick Tamland is freaking awesome and so very funny. He is random and I love it. He gets a love interest this time around found in Kristen Wiig, which is comedic.
“Anchorman 2” might not be the greatest comedy of 2013, but it’s consistently funny and even funnier if it is your type of humour. I would probably place this in my top 5 favourite comedies of 2013. I’d really like to see this again sometime soon, because it is quite entertaining, if too long. It’s also exciting to see the news men make news so entertaining for once, because I’d actually watch the news if it were more like this. The wait was also too long for this sequel, so if they make another involving ageism this time, it better come soon.
– by Daniel Prinn
