Despite being a huge Will Ferrell fan I went into Anchorman with doubts simply based on the fact that the trailers for this film never really did much for me. Considering that I just didn’t see how this film could be anymore than Ferrell, on screen, doing a multitude of semi-accounts of stand-up comedy. As it turns out that is not what I got, but what I did get caught me just a tad of guard.
Anchorman tells the story of San Diego in the ’70s when the newsroom was run primarily by men and a female news anchor was pretty much considered blasphemy, cue Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate).
Ron Burgandy (Will Ferrell) being considered the crème de la crème of anchormen owns the airwaves in San Diego and his world is sent for a tailspin when Corningstone vies for a role as co-anchor on the Channel 4 News Team.
Simple story, and obvious enough, but instead of doing the usual this film has a couple of scenes that seem as if they were taken so far out of left field that you almost can’t believe it is happening.
The best example may be a scene involving a slew of cameos from Tim Robbins, Ben Stiller (of course), Vince Vaughn (of course) and Luke Wilson (of course), but as the scene turns to madness the movie quickly follows.
Will Ferrell is the master at delivering just about any line conceivable and making it funny, and I laughed throughout this film, but overall it left me unsatisfied as I can only take so many corny anecdotes. As for the previously mentioned cameos they are funny, and fit into the mayhem of the film, but the best had to be the small cameo from Jack Black that is absolutely hysterical, and God bless the filmmakers for leaving it in, and by that I mean that a lot of what you see in the trailers doesn’t even make the final cut.
There is rumor that there is a cut of the film that spans over 4 hours long, and will be released on DVD as a completely different film called Wake Up, Ron Burgundy, which will last approximately an hour and 40 minutes, so you can expect more from this story as it, most likely, has not all been told.
As for what you will be getting in theaters, this film is no more than a string of SNL skits mashed into one film and at the times it works it is really funny, but on a whole it doesn’t match up to Ferrell’s earlier work.
