Anchorman 2 DVD review

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues – the story of Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrel) and his band of eccentric reporters. This time Ron finds his marriage to fellow newscaster Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) on the rocks whilst he takes on New York’s first ever 24-hour news channel.

Director Adam McKay and his muse Will Ferrell have tackled a vast amount of occupations in their comedic oeuvre and they have, mostly, succeeded in bringing the laughs. They  took on the police with The Other Guys, Nascar with Talledega Nights and, of course, the news industry with Anchorman. The latter of which is widely considered their masterpiece – a ludicrous farce in which Ferrell delivers his best performance to date as the pompous Ron Burgundy. So of course it was only inevitable that the studio big wigs would seek to capitalise on this icon and make a sequel. And, I am sad to say, it is such a shame that they did.

Although not a complete failure – a stupendously epic fight sequence towards the back end of the film is quite something – this continuation feels forced and somewhat formulaic. It is as if the duo felt the character himself could carry a film even if the jokes and plot are a little tired and stale. Unfortunately Ferrell’s performance, although as strong as ever, is not enough .

The plot is essentially a re-treading of the first film, with Burgundy  isolating those around him in pursuit of redeeming his career. Brick (Steve Carrel), Champ (David Koechner) and Brian Fontana (Paul Rudd) are all back but never really amount to anything more than caricatures of themselves. But the real problem here is that, for the most part anyway, the film just isn’t funny enough. Most of the jokes fall by the wayside whilst the ones that do land aren’t strong enough.

However, that being said, as a stand alone film, meaning to a viewer who has not seen the previous works of McKay and Ferrell, the film is watchable and perhaps even enjoyable. The shame is that, despite it’s best efforts, the film fails to live up to its forbearer.

Luke Brookman