Sequels often
have a difficult time justifying their existence even in the best of conditions,
and for whatever reason comedies face an even more daunting uphill battle. As I
mentioned in my reaction to the new season of Arrested Development, which I liked more than most, creations like
that are often the result of the right people coming together at precisely the
right time, and to try and recapture that magic many years later is like trying to
grab steam out of the air with your bare hands. The 2004 comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy would
seem to be an obvious case of this, since what Will Ferrell and Adam McKay
accomplished with that film was so wonderfully bonkers that any attempt at a
sequel would undoubtedly feel forced. The greatest challenge facing
the belated follow-up Anchorman 2: The
Legend Continues would almost certainly be the justification of its existence.
Impressively,
McKay and Farrell are able to find their hook in the 24-hour news cycle, a
whole new beast that allows them to examine the desperation that has driven
American media into its current state. That’s not to say Anchorman 2 is a terribly biting satire of the industry, since most
of its focus is on piling gag on top of gag on top of gag, but at the very
least this angle allows them to give the film a sense of narrative purpose. Right
at the start, McKay plops his characters into a news environment that is
rapidly changing, and it is up to them to adapt.
The film begins
with old friend Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) co-anchoring a national weekend newscast
with his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). Their life takes a
turn when Veronica is chosen to anchor the weeknight show by herself, and Ron
is unceremoniously fired. This sends our hero into a downward spiral, until
several months later when a representative from the new 24-hour news network
GNN (Dylan Baker) asks Ron to join the team in New York. After freshening up
and getting the old gang of Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Champ Kind (David
Koechner) and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) back together, they are given the
graveyard shift and a chance to make their mark in a whole new field of news
media.
This is, of
course, just a small part of what turns out to be a far more chaotic package. For
example, an entire chunk of the movie takes place at a lighthouse in the middle
of nowhere, and this occurs for reasons so absurd I won’t reveal them here. McKay
and Ferrell also make an effort to top one of the most infamous sequences from
the original, which is a tad unnecessary but every bit as batty as you might
imagine. That actually acts as a fine description of the film as a whole, which
jumps so quickly from gag to gag that some of them cannot help but fall flat. However,
that is precisely the kind of film that Ferrell and McKay have been making for
years. Their sense of humor is so uniquely bonkers that even when its
unsuccessful there’s something arresting about it. The marketplace is chock
full of improvisation-heavy comedies that never seem to go anywhere, and while Anchorman 2 is certainly an example of
that, the cast takes their material in such unexpected directions that it’s
ultimately able to surprise you. McKay’s films absolutely commit themselves to
each and every bit, and that is just part of what makes them stand out from the
pack.
Grade: B+
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