I was actually a little bit shocked when I saw that Anchorman 2 has a 75% Fresh Rating on Rotten Tomatoes and that it seems to have been generally pretty well received, because I thought that the overdue sequel missed the mark by quite a bit. First of all, from a marketing standpoint, this movie really should have been made about five years ago, back when Anchorman was still huge. To wait this long and then have the film not be a stellar piece of comedy is a major disappointment. I felt that the story struggled tonally, trying to incorporate serious elements into the script (Ron and Veronica's divorce, Ron getting fired again, Ron going blind) and there wasn't enough they could do to make those parts funny for it to really work. James Marsden felt incredibly out of place...I don't know if his comedic style just didn't mesh with their improvisation, but it was a wasted opportunity. Steve Carrell was massively overused. Brick is hilarious when used in small doses, but it just doesn't work when half the film's screen time is devoted to him. Finally, the long-anticipated news team battle started strong, but lost me when it tried to incorporate the ghost of Stonewall Jackson stealing people's souls. If you haven't seen it yet, that sentence makes it sound a lot funnier than it actually was. I love all of these guys to bits, but I guess I was just expecting a lot more.
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
