The Moose Hole - Review of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2004)

Will Ferrell is boldly going where no Saturday Night Live! performer has gone in years  translated success from the small screen to the big screen! Not since Mike Myers made the move to feature films with Wayne's World has Hollywood seen such a comedic performer such as Will Ferrell. It isn't recent that Ferrell has been making appearances in feature films; in fact he made his feature film debut in the Mike Myers comedy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery in 1997. Since then he has made feature roles and cameos in numerous comedies, none of which have made anything beyond a few million dollars of their production budgets. It wasn't until 2003 when Ferrell appeared in two surprise smash-hits, Old School and Elf, and decided to leave Saturday Night Live! Since then he has become of the most sought after comedic stars in Hollywood, receiving offers both left and right and there appears to be no sign of him slowing down anytime soon.
As with most sketch comedy films, the story doesn't matter as much to the audience as the laughs are all that seem to matter but Anchorman at least attempts, unlike so many others, to the plot it starts off with. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy takes movie-goers back to the 1970s when Ron Burgundy was San Diego's top-rated news anchor and only men were allowed to read the news. But the times are changing and when an ambitious female reporter, Veronica Corningstone, comes to the Channel 4 newsroom, Ron's world begins to change and not to his liking. At first, Veronica is given 'female' oriented interest stories, like cat fashion shows, and is kept out the lime-light for the most part. But one day, Ron fails to show up to report the news on time and Veronica takes his place, only to receive her big break and become co-anchor. Things just continue to get worse the more Ron fights the fact that he is no longer San Diego's top anchorman. The story for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy may not be the most accurate representation of the era at the time but it does manage to touch on some issues, as in the rise of feminism, that were of importance in the 1970s, although the film does not take them as seriously as they were in real life. But bottom-line is that film plays for laughs and nothing presented in this film should be taken seriously, except perhaps the representation of news anchors that are often seen on the local news today.
The cast of Anchorman consists of mainly of actors and actresses from Saturday Night Live!, whether they be current or former members, as well as several others that are well accustomed to sketch comedy of this nature. Will Ferrell, who proved to Hollywood that he was comedic driving force to be reckoned with thanks to his holiday smash-hit, Elf, owns the show as the title character, Ron Burgundy. This film proves to many that Ferrell is one of the best comedic minds in the business today as he is able to turn even the dumbest material into something funny  it may not be gut-busting but it doesn't come off as stupid as it should, which is all that matters to move the film along. Christina Applegate performs reasonably in the role of Veronica Corningstone, the female newswoman who threatens Ron Burgundy's news world. It wasn't that she doesn't work well in the film; there are severely scenes between her and Will Ferrell that are particularly funny. The problem is that most of the material given to her isn't as funny as it should be. Often she is too dependent on someone like Will Ferrell to help make the scene humorous and when it comes to a scene by herself, it doesn't have the same impact as the rest of the film. David Koechner's Champ Kind, the sports reporting cowboy, is one of the bigger disappointments and becomes a character that should have been entirely cut from the film as his material more trite and annoying then anything else. Steve Carell's Brick Tamland, the mentally retarded weatherman, is one of the biggest highlights of the film and, yes, there is a jab at the Bush administration with his character (what kind of Hollywood production would it be without one of those?) but other then that, he draws some of the biggest laughs of the film. And what would a comedy such as this be without celebrity cameos? Though many of the jokes of Anchorman don't live up to other comedies, this is one area where it probably rises above anything else in the past few years, including the opening segment of Austin Powers in Goldmember. Without giving away anything, pay attention to the street-fight sequence or you may miss someone.
Overall, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is dumb, immature, and lacks the consistency and technique of vastly superior comedies of the past such of Austin Powers but in a summer severely lacking in anything remotely humorous, it does the job its meant to do, making us laugh, even if years from now it will be long forgotten. One of the film's main problems is that there isn't anything excessively amusing. There are certain parts of the film that are certainly humorous, most notably the street-fight sequence between the numerous news teams, but they are few and far between. For the most part Anchorman relies on monotonous toilet humor that becomes old and tired the more they use it. It doesn't get to the point where it makes the film intolerable but it gets graze the line a bit. Another problem wasn't what was seen but rather it was the material that wasn't shown in the comedy. Remember the film's trailer? Some of the trailer's more entertaining moments don't make into the film ('Well, I'm getting a divorce and I may never see my kids again'  'Fantastic!') but according to the film's director, he ended up with about four hours worth of material which may all end up on a special edition DVD when its released later this year. The point is, despite those minor complaints, Anchorman is a pure, dumb comedy that doesn't expect to be anything more then entertaining, even if it fails to be all that memorable. In a year that has certainly lacked its share of quality comedies, let alone decent ones, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is one class act and worth the price of admission this summer.
My Rating: **** out of 5 (Grade: B)