Decent film, with generally good acting from the leads, but it did get a bit silly at times

Rating: 6/10 (10 February 2014)

Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is the lead Anchor for Channel 4 news in San Diego. His 3 co-workers/buddies are weather reporter Brick Tamland (Carell), field operative Brian Fantana (Rudd)and sports reporter Champ Kind (Koechner). Burgundy is at the top of his game and with Channel 4 news winning in the war of the ratings (much to the annoyance of Wes Mantooth) (Vaughan) who is the lead anchorman of a rival news company who are number 2 in the ratings war. Burgundy's boss Ed Harken (Willard) thinks Burgundy is the bee's knees, his colleagues all worship him and see him as the leader of the group which sets up a kind of 4 way 'bromance' between the leads. Things couldn't be better for Burgundy, but Harken decides that the network needs to make some changes and to have some 'diversity'. Therefore, he employs a new reporter Veronica Corningstone (Applegate)which causes upset amongst the employees of a male dominated work environment.
This is very much Ferrell's film and I must say that he did produce the goods in this film. I've not always enjoyed his performances in some of his other films (such as The Other Guys and Step Brothers) as a lot of the time he plays obnoxious or annoying characters, but here he actually plays a likable character. Burgundy, to me, was a character that was full of bravado but when it mattered he showed that he was a caring person. This to me is what made me enjoy this film as not only was it a generally funny film, but the characters were all likable. Carell plays a socially awkward character who isn't too dissimilar to the character that he played in the 40 year old virgin. Rudd & Koechner see themselves as a pair of 'Cassanova's, but they also show that they aren't particularly good at attracting the opposite sex (the scene where the 3 men try to pick up Corningstone clearly highlight this point).
Another good aspect to this film is the chemistry between Burgundy and Corningstone. Whilst, their romance was a little contrived and not entirely believable, I felt that they were great together (whether they were loved up or fighting each other, they were great fun to watch). There is also the moment where Burgundy gets fired for saying 'Go **** yourself San Diego' live on air. Up till this point, I found Burgundy to be likable, but I didn't have any reason to really care for him. However, when you actually see how much his job means to him and how low he sinks when he loses his job you can't help but warm to his character. Although 'technically' it was his own fault that he lost his job, he was, in effect, set up by Corningstone (she added the 'Go **** yourself San Diego onto the end of the autocue knowing that Burgundy reads whatever is on the autocue). This particular juncture of the film was well written and showed Burgundy's vulnerability. To go from being King of the World one minute to the scum of society clearly took its toll on him (as indeed it would for anyone). After this point, the rest of the film does become somewhat predictable but that didn't bother me too much as I enjoyed the film on the whole.
There were a couple of scenes in this film that I didn't think were great; the scene where all the news companies have a battle royale. I thought it was mildly amusing when it was just Mantooth and co and Burgundy and co, but it got silly when a load of different TV crews joined in the fight. It might have worked better if we'd have seen the feuds with these other companies as well. I think that would have made it funnier. Secondly, the idea of a dog and a bear talking to each other by barking and growling and then the dog happening to meet this bear's cousin whilst he was on his travels. WTF? There's funny and then there's dumb. I know that we're not supposed to take these sorts of films seriously, but I seriously suspect the person who came up with this idea had been sniffing glue or smoking something that they ought not to have been smoking.
Anchorman; The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a hit as far as I'm concerned and particular praise should go to Ferrell & Applegate who really carried this film. It was generally funny, with only the odd bit of stupidity that spoiled it.