Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

Scattershot Anchorman Sequel Delivers Old News

I didn’t like 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I went so far as to call it, “A pile of gelatinous over-saturated crap,” in my review at the time, and having watched it again recently on Blu-ray I can’t say my opinion changed over the past nine-plus years. While bits hit their mark, while the titular character is an admittedly decent creation, I just don’t find the humor funny, the so-called “charm” of that Will Ferrell effort lost on me entirely.

PHOTO: Paramount Pictures

Which probably makes me the wrong person to review the long in coming follow-up Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, but be that as it may here we still are. I did honestly do my best to give this sequel the benefit of the doubt, went into the promo screening with a clear head hoping beyond hope this second chapter of Ferrell’s apparently beloved Scotch-swilling television newsman would tickle my funny bone.

Happily, this 1980s-set effort taking place in New York during the early days of 24-hour cable television news did get my to chuckle, a sequence near the end involving a Central Park battle royale between competing news organizations (including the BBC and Canada’s CTV) invoking full-on belly laughs. Many of the satirical targets found within Ferrell and returning director Adam McKay’s (The Other Guys) script are smarter than I anticipated, the pair eviscerating the current corporate monopolization of televised news with gleeful precision.

Even so, sorry to say Ron Burgundy’s latest adventure did little for me, and by the time it ran through all of its lengthy 119 minutes I’d felt like I’d been sitting in the theater for 19 hours. While some of the comedic vignettes hidden inside the picture are moderately amusing, overall the picture is a tiring mess of missed opportunities and banal absurdities I quickly grew tired of. This kind of shtick is rarely my thing, and as handsomely produced as the movie might be, and as fully as the gifted ensemble of comedians throw themselves into it all, watching this for me proved to be nothing more than a exasperating waste of time.

There is some small semblance of a plot. Burgundy (Ferrell), after losing his job and seeing his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) getting the plumb network  nightly news anchor desk spot he lusted after,  the reported makes the decision to reunite his San Diego news team to work for upstart Cable network GNN. After making a bet with superstar Jack Lime (James Marsden), the team is forced to think outside the box in order to best his ratings, inadvertently setting a new industry standard by dumbing down the news for mass consumption.

That obviously isn’t everything, subplots involving Burgundy’s estrangement from Corningstone, his relationship with ambitious GNN executive Linda Jackson (Meagan Good) and his egocentric falling out with his trusted team are part of this, too. Throw in bits involving a boy (Judah Nelson) looking to connect with his absent father, sportscaster Champ Kind’s (David Koechner) unsanitary fried chicken aspirations, investigator Brian Fantana’s (Paul Rudd) cat photography business and weatherman Brick Tamland’s (Steve Carell) soda machine romancing of ditzy receptionist Chani (Kristen Wiig), not to mention stuff concerning a bottle-fed pet shark, and there’s plenty of insanity on display for viewers to sort through.

Problem is, there’s so happening, so much clutter, the majority of the gags rarely have the opportunity to blossom into something memorable or humorous. A lot of them wither and die on the comedic vine, seeds of a good idea not given the nourishment they needed into order to grow. The whole thing is a frenetic mess that’s as all over the map as it sounds, oftentimes tiring me out to the point of mind-numbing annoyance.

PHOTO: Paramount Pictures

Even the smart stuff isn’t as intelligent as it thinks it is, especially when you consider the points about the network news business Ferrell and McKay are making are basically the same ones Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky made three-and-a-half decades ago in Network, long before all of this stuff actually came true. These observations are still funny, still upsetting, but that doesn’t make much of what the pair are saying any less recycled, cart and horse rarely hitching together in a manner that doesn’t feel obvious.

What else is there to say? I didn’t care for Anchorman 2. But unlike its predecessor I didn’t outright detest it, either. While there are some funny bits, while many of the buried satirical sentiments do hit their mark, overall Ferrell’s latest scattershot comedic enterprise just isn’t my particular brand of Scotch, and while many will disagree, I’m certain the classiest thing I can do is be upfront with my disdain and then call it a night.

Film Rating: 2 (out of 4)