I hardly ever write movie reviews, but after seeing Anchorman 2 recently I feel irritated
enough to say something. The first Anchorman
movie came out in 2004 and with the exception of the Austin Powers series,
no film in recent history has resulted in more memes and oft-repeated
catchphrases (“I’m kind of a big deal.”) then The Legend of Ron
Burgundy. So, fans hoping for a sequel waited patiently almost ten years for
the next Anchorman installment. What they got, unfortunately, was a lazy,
sloppy, unimaginative retelling of the first Anchorman.
Every funny bit from the original movie is simply rehashed
with a few minor alterations and updates. Really? After ten years, the writers (who
include Will Ferrell) couldn’t come up with anything even slightly original? Do
they have so little respect for fans of the first movie that they thought it
would be okay to simply redo the jokes, and everyone would think that was
hilarious?
And speaking of Austin Powers, the creators of Anchorman 2
were so lazy that they unabashedly ripped off a bit from one of Myer’s movies.
When Burgundy meets the new African American producer, he can’t stop saying
“black,” a direct lift from Power’s inability to stop saying “mole.”
Even the core storyline of the movie is off key. Basically,
Ron Burgundy is credited with starting the vacuous infotainment trend prevalent
in today’s network news. The more original approach, in my opinion, would have
been to have Burgundy naively oppose the new trend and to fight quixotically
for presenting actual news. This just strikes me as being more in keeping with
his dolt-with-a-golden-heart character.
Anchorman 2 would
have been a disappointment if they’d rushed it out on the heels of the first
movie, but after 10 years, this bastard clone is inexcusable.
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