The Anchorman sequel fails to live up to the hype or its legacy

I’ve got to admit: I often times have to be dragged kicking and screaming to flicks like Anchorman 2, and end up enjoying them more than I expect. It happened with Old School; I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, but have been shouting “You my boy, Blue!” at (seemingly) appropriate times ever since. Along those lines, it came to me that I’d never actually seen all of the original Anchorman prior to last week. I had caught a great deal of it switching through the channels over the years, but not all of it (an issue I did resolve before the screening).

The reason Anchorman works is because you weren’t expecting it. Saying it launched a genre of comedy is probably overstating things, but it definitely rode the wave (whether it was something new, or something old experiencing a revival is an argument I’ll leave for other people). But there was something to  “shock” comedy nine years ago that might have gotten lost after experiencing flicks like Borat or the 85 Jackass variants we have been subjected to since.

Nine years after the fact, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues doesn’t work nearly as well as the original. Fans are expecting the jokes. The screening I went to was filled with people cosplaying as the characters, yet was decidedly quiet for large swaths of the movie. There was something just a little too familiar about the goings on, and the experienced suffered because of it. If there was a really popular bit from the original, there was a call back in the sequel (while admittedly this quickly became trite, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I enjoyed the hell out of one of those call backs, but more on that later).

I also wasn’t a fan of the flick’s narrative structure – though indicating that the film had structure is probably being a bit too kind. The story was told against the backdrop of the introduction of a 24-hour cable news network – which was an interesting satirical context to place the film in. But the backdrop did little to inform Burgundy’s arc. I’m not entirely sure but I think the film might have had six acts. There were two redemptive arcs – after one in the original. At some point, you’ve got to wonder how many second chances a guy can earn.

That being said, the film brought a lot of funny. The original cast fit into their old roles well – particularly Will Ferrell and Steve Carell. The additions to the cast, ranging from Harrison Ford and James Marsden to Josh Lawson and Kristen Wiig, did provide some freshness to the mix. As with the first flick, there were cameos at every turn. While I don’t want to ruin any of them, easily my favorite part of the flick was the callback to the street fight in the original, and each cameo was as hilarious and unexpected as the last (I can’t tell you exactly who my favorite was, but let’s say his character’s appearance was anachronistic).

I think Anchorman fans will be left wishing that Anchorman 2 brought more to the table. Perhaps we waited just a little too long to revisit the characters; maybe there just wasn’t a whole film’s worth of comedy to be mined from them. The sequel will probably satisfy Ron Burgundy’s biggest fans, but I think the rest of us could have lived without it.