Over-rated lampoon treatment of the 1970s

Rating: 4/10 (7 January 2007)

While a few aspects of this film were amusing - especially the casting of most of Hollywood's big name comic actors in the role of competing anchormen, the talking dog scenes, etc. This film does not, in my opinion, deliver any worthwhile insights and is not really funny when stripped of it's extremely superficial 1970s paint job.
Note that the film's IMDb rating averages around 5 for people who actually lived through the 70s and around 7 for those who did not.
The film was probably written for the same crowd that enjoyed "That 70s Show", and uses the same absurd and extremely inaccurate symbols, style and politics to create a totally fantasized (and incidentally perverse) "sense of the times". Essentially, this is a view of 70s culture through the lens of 70s TV cameras, 00s conservative social and political regressivism, and the knowledgeable sensibilities of comedy writers who were, for the most part, preadolescent during the subject period.
The film is about a lot of amazingly stupid people, most of whom are not very likable, who happen to be in the TV news industry. Some of the news broadcast scenes are actually funny. Ron Burgundy - played by Ferrell- is the head idiot. Burgundy is a cross between a 1970s porn star and Ted Baxter of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. His character exhibits just about a much depth as these two stereotypes - though perhaps less than Baxter in Ted Knight's better moments on MTM. His dog, ****__Baxter__****, is the most intelligent character in the film and, IMO, steals the show.
Burgundy is struggling to save his career as he is confronted with an only slightly more intelligent stereotype of a 1970s career-woman (complete with the usual inaccurate stereotype female dilemma which people of today's generation seem to believe to be characteristic of the period - she has to decide between an uncontrollable sexual attraction and her certain knowledge that the guy she's attracted to is an imbecile and a cad who wants to ruin her career almost as much as he wants to slither into her undergarments). The plot could have provided a vehicle for comedic analysis of 1970s sexual politics, but - perhaps wisely - the writers avoided any intelligent analysis (only those who lived through the 70s would have gotten it, and most of us would not have gone to see this film anyway).
As far as media critique goes - well, there really isn't any. The film simply doesn't carry that much weight and systematically misses every opportunity to accomplish anything besides half-hearted chuckles and giggles.
The cinematography is standard for the genre - and very average. the writing is OK, though drastically inhibited by its apparently improvised overall direction and the lack of defined themes and depth. The cast does a good job, considering limitations of the material. Steve Carrell is, as always, very entertaining. And the cameos, though merely exploitive of star-power, are amusing. Baxter, however, steals the show. And I would have been much more entertained by the film had he been a more prominent character. I would enjoy a sequel featuring Baxter as a 1970s canine Zen superhero.