Cinematic junk food

Rating: Null/10 (20 March 2006)

Judging from the state (and unaccountable success)of this movie, it seems that audience standards are declining as the spoof comedy becomes increasingly difficult for Hollywood filmmakers to successfully pull off without blundering into juvenile crassness. One condition is probably a result of the other - although which came first is open to conjecture - and, considering the film's success, it seems as if it will be a long time before things are turned around.
Anchorman 'satirises' US TV of the 70s with a deftness of touch as subtle as Will Ferrell's wig and a vast appetite for laughs that it never comes close to satisfying. This is cinematic junk food: too bland, too homogeneous and too lacking in substance to offer any real nourishment, and simply offering a quick fix to those who don't care what they ingest just as long as it offers them a few moments of escape. Too often, while watching this flick, you get the feeling that the writers are just throwing every idea they have - good, bad or indifferent - at the screen in the hope that someone somewhere will find it amusing. Hit and miss comparisons are redundant here because the hits don't exist. Even the moments that should work don't because the makers overplay their hand each time they come close to hitting on a funny idea.
On this evidence, Will Ferrell is a better comedy actor than he is a comedy writer, and only his clever performance salvages anything from the untidy wreckage of this collision of scenes. Christina Applegate looks good but contributes little while Ferrell's sidekicks are mostly just irritating. Nothing meshes here: the plot is repeatedly sacrificed in favour of another weak gag; touched with inspired insanity, plot doesn't matter - the humour is enough to carry the viewer - but here the weakness of the material simply serves as a constant reminder that nothing is happening - and its not happening in a very unfunny way.
Even the out-takes aren't funny.