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?
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
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.
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