Silly, goofy and very funny in spurts

Rating: 6/10 (12 July 2004)

Although "Anchorman" lacks the inspired lunacy of, say, "Airplane!" (1980) or "Hot Shots!" (1991), I found myself laughing more than I expected and probably more than I should have.
This is an amiable comedy that, when it works, does so because of the earnest performances by Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Fred Willard and Steve Carell, who almost steals the film as Brick Tamland, the world's dumbest weatherman.
This is essentially an extended comedy sketch. Even at a mere 90 minutes, it seems stretched a bit too much. The comedy that works is the satire on TV coverage, when the film parodies the news business. The news bits and the TV station's promos are funny because, although the film is set in the 1970s, local TV stations even today resort to corny promos to win over their audiences.
The humor clearly is lowbrow and that's fine. There are as many hits as misses, but when the comedy hits, it's hilarious. The love scene's pretty funny, and there's a hysterically funny awkward moment when Ron offers to take Veronica on a tour of San Diego. Too bad the actual tour doesn't prove to be funny.
When writers Ferrell and Adam McKay, who also directed, go for broad sweeps, the comedy just isn't there. They're straining for laughs and the scenes don't work. An all-out brawl seems utterly pointless and an impromptu jazz flute scene is sporadically funny. It goes on for too long, as does an a cappella sequence by the news team. The cameos are interesting, but do we really need to see Ben Stiller in every movie?
Ferrell throws himself so enthusiastically into Ron Burgundy that it's tough not to like this chap. I wish they had more fun with the teleprompter or had him bungle real news. On the other hand, Fred Willard makes deadpan comedy an art form (watch his hilarious turn as Buck Laughlin in 2000's "Best in Show"), yet the writers don't give him enough funny stuff with which to work. His one-sided phone conversations were ripe for terrific comedy, but they fall flat.
An intermittently funny film, "Anchorman" comes apart at the end in an unfunny bit set in a zoo covering "the greatest story in the history of the world." I realize I might be in the minority here, but I found nothing humorous here. It had the potential to be sidesplittingly uproarious but, instead, seemed awfully forced. The film called for a stronger, funnier denouement. But, by then, the writers apparently had run out of ideas.