I support the Will Ferrell backlash

Rating: 2/10 (29 February 2008)

As I watched this very pointless, unfunny movie, my mouth was hanging open over how little Ferrell and I agree on what is funny. Ferrell can support a movie and get laughs in someone else's (Zoolander) but he ruins his own with his lazy, one-note shtick. Talladega Nights was stupid... Frank the Tank was stupid... Bewitched was stupid AND a trainwreck... Elf was mawkish Xmas leftovers... I can't even begin to describe how utterly free of laughs I found the previews for Blades of Glory and Semi-Pro. I enjoy a stupid comedy every now and then, but Ferrell's career is just dissembling into nonsense. Being a puerile character can be funny; making puerile movies is not.
As Will Ferrell has no other stock to sell, we get his next self-impressed buffoon. There's nothing else in Ferrell's head. The movies big concept is that Anchormen never take off their anchorman jackets and never ease up on the sanctimonious speaking style. Isn't that funny? Shakes the Clown called - He'd like his idea back. When you're stealing fifteen year old concepts from Bob Goldwaithe you're in trouble. Any comedy I like eventually mocks sentimentality. Here and in Adam Sandler movies, sentiment is embraced as a way to provide a handful of utterly conventional plot-points. Get the girl. Win the fight. Do we really need any more carbon copies of that movie with new jokes? And I'm being generous when I describe this movie as having jokes or a plot. There is no reason to watch this for ninety minutes since each scene is just a disconnected, failed stab at being funny and providing lines for the Ferrell cult to parrot. The movie is utter nonsense by the twenty minute mark. After what seems like hours of failed improvised comedy, we get to a remarkable, unfunny Anchorman gangfight where an entire modern crop of unfunny actors have cameos (Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller) cause that's been original for, what, twenty years? What I would give for Vaughan, Stiller, Wilson, Ferrell, Rudd and the last ten years of their shitty, shitty movies to be erased from history. A final act with a sub-titled dog is supposed to be free-wheeling but it's just the most painfully insipid idea that should have been rejected in this mess. God, this movie is crap. It actually made me wince in pain.
Ferrell has replaced Ben Stiller as Hollywoods resident 'irritating prick' presumably until the next desperate TV funny-man who's willing to do anything for a buck dethrones him. I feel very confident that the rest of Will Ferrell's career will be at least as stupid as what we've already seen. At this point, I would pay studios nine bucks NOT to watch each of the rest of his movies. I would prefer to have someone beat me with a pillowcase full of batteries for 2 hours, than sit through another miserably unfunny Ferrell vehicle. Kudos to Ferrell for figuring out how to parlay his extraordinarily limited talent into a paycheck, but I'm perfectly willing to sit down with him and discuss the terms of his immediate retirement. Paul Rudd used to be an actor before losing faith in himself and becoming the weakest, least funny member of both the Ferrell & Apatow meathead teams. He's the new Peter Lawford.
The lowest form of comedy involves people trying too hard to be funny. Comedies which involve a self-impressed jackass (an anchorman, a nascar drive, a male model, a basketball player, a ping-pong champ, a dodge-ball captain, ad nauseum) taking himself too seriously are now officially DEAD!