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Since its release in 2004, Will Ferrell’s campy ‘70s comedy, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, has become a cult favorite. Now, in the long-awaited sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, the news-reading superstar ventures into the ‘80s and changes the face of the news forever.
The sequel finds Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) happily married to Veronica (Christina Applegate) and sharing a news broadcast with her on a station in New York. But when Veronica gets a promotion and Ron gets the axe, Ron decides to return home to San Diego. His stay, however, is short-lived—because it’s not long before he’s offered a job reading the news on a ground-breaking 24-hour news network.
After traveling the country to round up his old news team, Ron returns to New York, determined to regain his news-reading supremacy.
Die-hard fans of the original Anchorman have been begging for a sequel for years—but when a movie is as eagerly anticipated as this one, it’s admittedly hard to live up to the hype. For a while, though, Anchorman 2 meets and even surpasses expectations. As Ron gets the gang back together and faces off against hotshot newsman Jack Lime (James Marsden), it’s pure comic gold. There are more comic hits than misses—and Farrell and Steve Carell, especially, are wildly hilarious. In fact, it’s often so funny that Marsden spends most of his scenes struggling to keep a straight face.
Unfortunately, though, the story has some serious issues—and instead of sticking with the rivalry with Lime and his team, it attempts to move on to some serious conflicts that feel painfully contrived. Ron lets the ratings race go to his head—and, in the process, he sacrifices his integrity as a newsman as well as his friendships with his team and his relationship with his son, Walter (played by Judah Nelson, who could possibly be the worst child actor ever).
But that’s only the beginning of the film’s problems. After the first awkward turn, the story then goes completely off the rails, until it’s so random and bizarre that it just doesn’t make any sense anymore. It becomes less funny and more awkward, and the constant guffaws of the first half turn into the occasional half-hearted pity chuckles of the second half.
Of course, fans of the first Anchorman will still enjoy this retro reunion with Ron Burgundy and the rest of his outrageous news team—and the hilarious first half still makes it worthwhile. But the sidetracked story and diminishing laughs keep the sequel from living up to the legend.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
