MOVIE REVIEW - Anchorman 2

Will Farrel and the whole Anchorman troupe is back in the next chapter in the Ron Burgundy saga. The huge cast from the original and a ton of cameos are featured here as well in Anchorman 2.

After seeing over 170 movies this year, I have to say that we need Anchorman 2 for a few mindless laughs.  This has been a very heavy, and harsh year at the movies and this could lighten things up a bit.   And being fair, it does over the first 1 hour plus of this 2 hour movie.  Sadly though, this really limps home and becomes very strange and more than a little over the top.

Americas anchorman Burgundy (Farrel) and his bunch now are in 1979, and it's the beginning or the cable TV and cable news boom.   Burgundy and his "news team"  are hired in at the fictional GNN  (Global News Network) to sign on a then unheard of 24 hours news channel.   And this part of the movie is exceptionally good, creative and pretty funny.  Burgundy alone with his bungling and quirky self, unknowingly invents many of the excepted practices of cable networks of today.  This part is great parody, and also at times make great social statements.  It is inventive, and a wonderful lampoon of many present day cable channels, including FOX News, The Weather Channel, E, ESPN, and even the mainstream networks. This part of the movie really worked well.

Although this series is an acquired taste, there is still a whole bunch of parody and heavy satire of the broadcast industry and life in general in 1979.   Much of this is extremely politically incorrect of course, but it's Burgundy.  This movie, to its credit, did not fall off the raunchy wagon and overall this is fairly tame with the situational humor and language.

But after a while, this movie becomes bored with being original, and then becomes something it shouldn't.   It starts to fall in love with itself, and decides it can do whatever it wants because it's Anchorman.  The last half hour plus of this movie is like a completely different movie, and it doesn't work.  And it feels like the first and original half was just a warm up for all of Farrel's friends to get their cameo in this flick.

There are a few too many side plots that don't work at all, but they are not deal breakers, but sadly the final minutes of this are.  This was on track to be really fun But after a nice start, it stumbles down the home stretch and eventually falls exhausted at the finish line, gasping for breath.

Anchorman 2.   A tale of 2 movies, one good, one not so much.   Too bad.  A shorter flick, with a bit more focus could have been really fun start to finish.