Film Review: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues    4/10
Director: Adam McKay

Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd

Plot: Ron Burgundy returns as he’s offered a job on America’s first 24-hour news channel.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy released back in 2004, proved to be a box office success. On a budget of $26 million, the film returned over $90 from across the globe. It’s surprising though that it has taken this long for a sequel to surface. However, here it is; an ultimately flawed and drawn-out comedy sequel.

Firstly, Anchorman 2 does sometimes succeed on the laugh front. Surprisingly though, very few laughs come from Will Ferrell himself. Instead, they come from Steve Carell. Carell’s character – Brick Tamland – receives far more time to shine in this film and his scenes with Kristen Wiig are comedic gold. Though these two work so well together (a duo spin-off wouldn’t go amiss), the rest of the cast seem to fall behind and add little. Ferrell’s star role as Ron Burgundy comes across as a little desperate at times, as he uses overtly racist and unnecessarily offensive jokes. Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd and David Koechner are all prominent at the beginning of the film, before funnelling off and returning for brief scenes, which add little to the film’s comedic value.

The film also seems to suffer from its pacing. Running at a staggering 119 minutes, this film is far too long. Comedies in general are most effective and popular when running (like the original Anchorman) at a healthy 90-minutes. The opening hour is like a giant road-trip bonanza before the story fleshes out a little. Before long though, a painfully long sequence spent in a lighthouse and a bizarre battle towards the end feel incredibly pointless and hollow (though the cameos are rather surprising). The length of the film seems to swallow any of its comedic value, which really thins out in the final hour.

In Conclusion: though there are a lot of new jokes here and it’s inevitably more ambitious than the first (which I didn't enjoy), Anchorman 2 is way too long and tries to go beyond what it does best – and that’s make people laugh.