Average Comedy

Rating: Null/10 (22 July 2004)

Anchorman is a good concept that wears a little thin over 90 minutes. Spoliers included. The opening credits are among the movie's funniest moments when Ron Burgundy is "practicing" by saying certain phrases such as "The human torch was denied a bank loan." This was a very funny moment, but unfortunately, the plot got in the way of the comedy. This often happens with comedy. The first half hour or so of the movie is great, but then the plot starts to take over, and that plot is usually uninteresting. The comedy moments get further and further apart, and the movie starts to drag. Old School comes to mind as another example.
Will Ferrell gives an excellent performance as Ron Burgundy. Steve Carell continues to shine. Paul Rudd is surprising in this type of role. I think they tried to create a real character with Christina Applegate, and failed. She just wasn't very interesting. I give Ferrell and Adam McKay credit for trying to create plot and characters, but I think this movie would have been better if it was pure slapstick, with Applegate simply being the butt of all the jokes.
The now well known cameos provide few funny moments. Vince Vaughn is one of my favorites, but his improvization does not work here, and he has one funny line in the whole movie. Surprisingly, Luke Wilson provides the funniest cameo.