ANCHORMAN 2 - THE LEGEND CONTINUES: this anchor's too lightweight to hold down a story

Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear!
What was I thinking?
How could I have deluded myself into believing this film might be worth watching?
How could I have so easily forgotten the intense marketing campaign for ANCHORMAN 2 which saturated  tv, radio and the internet just a few months ago without raising one genuinely laugh-out-loud moment?

The film lives down to every expectation which I had chosen - in a moment of madness - to ignore in hopes of some undemanding and enjoyable Saturday night entertainment.
It's yet another lamestream, cynical Hollywood sequel designed to cruise and collect on the back of audiences' fond memories for the original which - in the cold light of day - wasn't that spectacular either.
There, I've said it.
2004's 'Anchorman' is not the classic that our faulty collective memory would have us believe, but it's practically 'Citizen Kane' next to this abysmal follow-up.
The big problem I have with this film is Ron Burgundy. He's not a consistent character but rather a vehicle for Will Ferrell to show off his 'incredible' improvisational comedy skills. For a character to be credible he or she needs to display certain reliable and recurring traits, and when in the interests of a quick laugh or a plot requirement, they act in a way that is not consistent with the way we've been lead to believe they are, it shatters the illusion of believability.
Burgundy is presented to us as an egotistical, misogynistic, dim-wit whose sole talents are great hair and the ability to read a teleprompter, except when Ferrell decides to have him do

something outside of this character to, as I say, grab a laugh or service a plot twist.
And my reaction is - that's not what Ron Burgundy would do or say. My disbelief is no longer suspended and the world within the film falls apart.
ANCHORMAN 2 has Burgundy inadvertently inventing the template for 24 hour cable news channels, with a collection of off-the-cuff comments and spur of the moment decisions that the channel's executives seize on as flashes of genius. Not only are these outside the realm of Ron's capabilities, but they're such obvious set-ups for a bunch of cheap and lazy jabs at what cable news has become that they fail even to raise a knowing smile.
As with almost every other Will Ferrell starrer it's clear that improvisation has taken precedence over the script, to the detriment of the story. Too many of the scenes feel like the product of numerous takes and many different lines, with the intention of finding the perfect bust-a-gut-guffawing routine. The result, unfortunately, is too often reminiscent of a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch where the germ of a funny idea shrivels and dies for lack genuinely creative development.
The net result of all this misfiring is that the film feels interminable and when it did eventually get to the end the only sensation was of being cheated out of two hours of my life.

LAST VEGAS: The Hangover on Viagra fails to rise to the occasion

LAST VEGAS is as shiny, glitzy, shallow and fake as its namesake city.
Both dangle tantalizing promises of fun and excitement that neither are able to deliver on.
Las Vegas can be a wonderful place if your idea of a great time is blowing your life savings in a matter of minutes, but for those of us searching for something less costly and more stimulating its welcome soon wears thin.

Utilising the strapline 'It's Going to be Legendary', LAST VEGAS baits its trap with similar blandishments. Who can resist the opportunity to watch an all-star cast of Hollywood heavyweights cutting loose in that sun-soaked high temple to hedonism with their own viagra-fuelled  take on 'The Hangover'?
The reality is considerably less legendary and infinitely more 'feet of clay.'
Without maligning in any way the professionalism of Messrs Robert  De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline, there's very little sense of any of them making more than the most token of efforts to create a plausible character for themselves. The overwhelming perception is of four big-name actors half-heartedly participating in a very generously all-expenses-paid lark which doesn't ask much more of them than to turn up, remember their lines and not walk into the furniture.
Playing lifelong buddies, now in their late 60s, re-uniting in Vegas to throw a bachelor-party for Douglas ahead of his wedding to a woman half his age, the cast goes through the motions with a minimum of commitment or enthusiasm. If it's not quite as lazy as Freeman's abysmal 2007 senior citizen romp 'The Bucket List' it comes pretty close. Where that film barely ventured outside the sound stage, preferring to stand its stars in front of a green screen, LAST VEGAS does at least have the decency to actually shoot in Las Vegas but the end result is not much different.
The story's unimaginative, the characters half-formed and predictable, and the humor mostly non-existent. While by the end of it all De Niro, Douglas, Freeman and Kline have unsurprisingly discovered a new lease on life, I was left feeling much like one of those suckers Las Vegas depends on who put their retirement fund on red and came up empty. 

PHILOMENA: no histrionics, just compelling storytelling

PHILOMENA is the true story of a young Irish woman forced to give up her baby by nuns who goes searching for him 50 years later and makes the horrendous discovery that he's grown up into a Republican.
Best Actress Oscar nominated Judi Dench stars as Philomena Lee, playing her as a beguiling mix of naivety, street-smarts, and determination a woman who finds strength and solace in her religious beliefs even though it's the same Catholic church that is responsible for her lifetime of sadness and longing.

Dench is magnificent, holding the screen with an effortless grace and authority that makes it possible to simultaneously enjoy another great performance by Britain's greatest living actress and believe in Philomena as a real life character. Her presence also brings out the best in co-star Steve Coogan, inspiring him to dig deeper than he's done before in an effort to shake-off the Alan Partridge persona that's coloured every non-Alan Partridge part he's ever played on film and tv. He doesn't entirely escape from the shadow of the Norfolk local radio personality but by mid-film the vocal tics and inflections were definitely less distracting.
Even more of a revelation than his acting is Coogan's Academy Award nominated screenplay. Low-key and devoid of unnecessary and manipulative sentimentality, it reflects Philomena's own non-nonsense approach to life, and is as deserving of its Oscar nod as Dench's and the film's for Best Motion Picture of the Year.
Whether PHILOMENA goes home tonight with any of the coveted golden statuettes is almost impossible to predict. It faces very tough competition in every category from films that are so different that it seems unfair to try and rank them against one another. But win or lose, PHILOMENA is most definitely worthy of your time and attention.