REVIEW: Anchorman 2

In the bathroom, immediately following a cinema screening of “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues”, I overheard a pudgy 12-year-old in a tracksuit make the following observation:

“That was the funniest film I’ve seen in ages. I could watch that ten times and still laugh.”

If you are a pudgy 12-year-old in a track suit (or a general common pleb), you can stop reading right here and go see the movie. Take notes so you can later regurgitate every line with your homies over Pot Noodle or whatever you damn kids are eating nowadays. But I digress.

The young bathroom dweller (let’s call him Wort) was correct to an extent – Anchorman 2 was indeed a funny movie. It did exactly what was required of it; it got the news team back together, it impressed us with a bucket of unnecessary yet brilliant celebrity cameos, and it threw us plenty of awkward yet somehow ticklish gags which would surely die on their ass were it not for the fine delivery and comic timing of Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell and Baldy O’Mutton-Chops.

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The original Anchorman was an inexplicable runaway hit due to its capacity as a “grower” – on first watch I thought it was totally average and forgettable, but its charm is in its quotability. As soon as I heard someone say “Oh it’s so hot – milk was a bad choice” on a hot day, then that was it. From that moment onward, Anchorman was a fine comedy in my mind. Now I know the script backwards. One could argue that the ideal Anchorman sequel would be the same – less a great comedy, more a community experience; a shared anecdote between peers… or some sort’a shit.

Anchorman 2 falls down in two key areas – first is in the frankly inferior humour. The funny gags in the first one were like lightning in a bottle – they shouldn’t have landed, but they did (case in point: “I love lamp”). After one viewing of Anchorman 2, I can confirm that only about 65% of the jokes got a laugh, but that’s still a firm number. Second was the mammoth length of the movie. Clocking in at about 121 minutes, you will definitely feel its length at times, particularly in the third act. For a silly comedy about a typically obnoxious Will Ferrell character, two hours is enormous. As you leave the cinema (or turn off your pirate copy you bought down the pub), you’ll have a good idea of which scenes could’ve been left on the cutting room floor.

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If you are thinking of going to see this movie, remember three things: First, it’s probably worth your money, if you’ve got some kind of discount (i.e. Orange Wednesdays). At the end of the day, it was a worthy sequel, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Second – if you liked the first one, you will like the sequel (but slightly less so); and third – why are you not going to see “American Hustle”, “12 Years a Slave” or “Wolf of Wall Street” instead, you fucking Neanderthal?

3.5/5.

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