This Just In: Another SNL Alum Flops

Rating: 5/10 (1 August 2004)

Anchorman is a comedy starring Will Farrell of Saturday Night Live fame. It is a spoof of 70's local news broadcasting, complete with sexist humor and wide lapels.
It's a mediocre comedy at best. There are some very funny bits about lame local news stories (including the obligatory waterskiing squirrel), and a lot of sexist jokes about the new anchorwoman (played by personal favorite Christina Applegate). The scenes where the threatened reporters try to distract her during her first telecast are hysterical.
The big problem is the film is not consistently funny. They ruin it right away by making Will and Christina an unbelievable "item", it goes downhill from there. A promising but eventually ludicrous scene involving a rumble between rival telecasters shows one of the problems: over-the-top humor. Humor can be at it's funniest when it's smart and sly, here they try to pummel you with it, but unlike Airplane, they carry it too far.
I give the film 5 out of 10, because it's funny about half the time.

Barky