nowhere near as good as it looked in the previews.

Rating: 4/10 (1 January 2006)

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT:
Anchorman was a case of a movie that looked great in previews that really wasn't all that good when I saw it. I do love comedies and this looked to be a good one but I felt it was highly overrated and was rather a disappointment.
The main problem I had with Anchorman was the humor. It just wasn't very funny. Some of the attempts at humor were obnoxious, and though there were a few laugh out loud funny jokes (although I can't even recall what those are now) for the most part, the humor was very cliché and nothing new. The movie wasn't that long either but did actually drag in certain places.
Ferrell was pretty good, Applegate wasn't bad (though, to me, she seemed to be trying not to laugh at times), but this movie, while harmless enough was almost desperately trying to engage the audience in laughter-nothing was all that funny, and nothing was terribly original. I also never believed I was watching media people, and though the movie may have tried at humor it didn't try at much else. And I REALLY could have done without that scene of the dog being thrown into the water.
It is very difficult to take a movie seriously when one gets the feeling the cast isn't taking it seriously. Although I know people who like this movie, for me it's definitely below average and a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting some believability and at least an attempt at a story. I was also expecting a high degree of wit and fun. Instead what I got was a bunch of tired jokes, none very original. There were some positives-the movie wasn't overlong, the direction was good, the story was actually A good one (and would have made an excellent movie if more time had gone into the dialog, and the story had been taken at all Seriously). The best thing in the movie was the outtakes at the end. My vote is a 4 of 10.