Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Red = Spoilers 

Anchorman 2 is the 2013 sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy. It has its moments, and it’s worth seeing, at least once. But for what it’s worth, it’s pretty much just trying to rehash what worked the first time around. And that’s essentially what they do for most of the movie. And the parts where they’re not doing that are, oddly enough, the less funny parts of the film.  

What’s it about? We start off with Ron and Veronica in New York City as the co-anchors of a network news channel. When one day, they get called up to their boss’s office after a broadcast. He ends up firing Ron and promoting Veronica. Ron has a mental breakdown and becomes an announcer for the San Diego Zoo. A man named Freddie Shapp comes to offer Ron a job at a new 24-hour news channel that’s being created. Ron accepts and goes out to find his old news team. Once at the station, Ron comes up with the idea to take a more sensationalistic approach to the news and tell the people not what they need to hear, but what they want to hear. The stations ratings skyrocket, and other stations scramble to copy them. After getting blinded in an ice-skating accident, Ron is isolated in a lighthouse when Veronica and his son Walter come to visit. Ron learns to function while being blind and bonds with his old family when he discovers that Veronica has been keeping messages from Ron’s doctor from him. There’s a surgery to get his vision back but Veronica thought he wouldn’t love them if he got his sight back. Ron goes and gets the surgery and returns to GNN to be an anchor again. Veronica tells Ron that Walter has a piano recital that night and he wants Ron to be there when Freddie comes out and tells Ron about a juicy new live story that needs to be reported right away. Ron has to choose between his son’s recital and reporting the news. Ron chooses his son’s recital, but first gives a heartfelt speech about how sensationalism isn’t news. He then hurries to Walter’s recital but is intercepted on the way by Jack Lime and his news crew. They’re then met by other news crews in a recreation of the street fight scene from the first movie. In the end, Ron makes it to his son’s recital, Brick gets married, and Baxter saves Ron from a shark. It’s sort of more entertaining than I made it sound. 

What’s good? There’s a bunch of good jokes in there. A lot of them are rehashing the same jokes from the first movie. Or just the same joke told in a different way. There’s plenty of funny material in there, though. It’s a good enough comedy. 

What’s bad? It drags on at points. It gets repetitive. Sometimes, when a joke doesn’t work, it’s like “well, at least you’re not gonna keep telling that joke for another minute or two…” But then, you do keep telling it for another minute or two. You shouldn’t do that… 

The actors? Most of the actors are good in this. Except for that little kid. I mean, I know he’s just a little kid, but it’s just so annoying. I guess it’s hard for a 6-year-old to sound sarcastic. At least, the kind of sarcastic that a writer puts into a script.  

The effects? 2013 was modern by special effects standards. So, there’s not too much to say about the effects. Brick has a gun from the future, and he blows up the side of an apartment building. Neither of those things really happened, but it looked pretty good. 

The garden gnome. I don’t know where Ron Burgandy picks up these phrases to practice his diction from. “The garden gnome has a normal sized penis”. How does that even help? 

A fluorescent light. He tries to hang himself from a fluorescent light, which is hardly solid enough to hold the rope itself, let alone a man the size of Ron Burgandy. Which was then proven as he ripped the light out of the ceiling when he removed the stool from underneath his feet. 

How does the census make you gay? What about the census makes your children gay? How is making them gay? Why is it making them gay? How many children in America are made gay by the census per year? 

How was he a sportscaster for 12 years? If Champ knows literally next to nothing about sports, how was he a sportscaster for over 12 years? 

Where’s he getting bats in bulk? Where’s Champ getting bats in bulk for his restaurant? Somebody has to have noticed they were full sized bats if they were literally frying them whole and selling them.  

Everything’s the chicken of something. They probably could’ve run the “chicken of the something” joke into the ground if they really wanted to. Everything could be a chicken of whatever. Every time they bring up some new topic “You know what they call rabbits?” “Chicken of the field…” 

Why did they have the funeral? If Brick was already at the funeral, why did they have it in the first place? How did nobody know he was there until he got up to the podium to speak? I know suspension of disbelief and all that, but I think that was one of more unfunny jokes in this one.  

He offers Brick a balloon to out from behind the couch. I did think it was funny how Linda scared Brick to hide behind the couch and Ron offered him a balloon to come back out and Brick was more than happy to do it. 

Brick’s soulmate. It was sweet how they made Brick and an equally retarded girl find love a side story. That’s funny. Now, why is it offensive to laugh at that? Why can’t people just have a laugh and move on? 

What’s she doing with her lipstick? Why was Chani investigating her lipstick like that? She was smelling it and turning it all over and looking at all different sides of it before Brick came over to talk to her.  

The 80s style artwork. I like the 80s motif in Ron’s apartment. The large, neon paintings of the news team members. Things got more 80s the more the movie went on. It was funny to notice. 

You can’t smoke crack on TV. What exactly was the news story they were trying to do there? “Smoking Crack Can Get You High”? Seems like an easy enough story… 

Brian’s cabinet of condoms. This is literally a complete rip-off of the cologne cabinet joke from the first movie. He even opens the cabinet the same way. He hits it and pops open. Although, I think he hit it with his elbow in the first one. He kind of pops it with his fist here. But that’s just semantics.  

Was it him? When Ron’s at dinner with Linda, he asks her “Is that your foot between my legs? And she says “No”. Does that mean he was just sitting there, rubbing his own dick? And then he asked her if she was rubbing it, anyway? Why did he start rubbing his own dick? Weren’t they talking about where she went to college? 

Which one of you pipe hitting bitches? It’s kind of her fault for bringing Ron into a situation like that. She knew how stupid he was. If anything was going to go wrong, it was going to be his fault. And, by the transitive property, her fault.  

Brian hurts his hand. Brian hurts his hand punching Ron and walks away shaking it. As he’s walking away, Brick starts imitating the motion Brain’s making as if he hurt his hand too, just because Brian is doing it.  

An 80-year-old man. An 80-year-old man ends up being the driver of the speeding car that Ron spend his entire broadcast speculating about. It seems anticlimactic when you think about it.  

A blind newsman. I could see where they were going with the whole “blind newsman” thing. But they didn’t really do anything with it. They just made him blind for a little while, and then he wasn’t again. That was in essence the joke. He was blind for a little while, and now, he’s not, anymore? That’s it? That’s literally the whole thing? There could’ve been a whole lot more to that.  

How do you brush your teeth with a lobster? I think this was supposed to be a really funny joke. At least, it was probably funny sounding when they wrote it. But when they actually shot it, it didn’t come across as funny as it should’ve been. 

Sarcastic 6-year-old. That little kid is seriously annoying. I mean, I know you can’t blame a 6-year-old kid for being a bad actor, but it’s just annoying. But that’s what kids are, isn’t it? 

Ron’s heartfelt soliloquy. Ron gives a speech before he leaves to see his son’s piano recital about how there’s so much news out there and that it’s all being sensationalized for the highest ratings. And then Ron told the people to watch the news they need, not the news they want. 

Rehash the street fight joke. Because it was probably one of the most popular parts of the first movie, they straight up reenacted the street fight scene from the first Anchorman. They added different crews from other popular cable networks and made cameos from other big-name celebrities. It literally looked like they put a whole lot more work into that street fight segment than they did on a lot of the other parts of the movie. You can tell. A lot of the budget for that movie went into that street fight sequence. 

Essentially the same ending. Except for being at Brick’s wedding, it’s practically the same ending. Ron’s in trouble with a large predator, and Baxter comes and saves him. It’s lazy writing if nothing else.  

So, yeah. Go and see Anchorman 2, at least once. Just to say you’ve seen it. Just to know what’s there. It’s worth watching once. The first one is still funnier. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…