High concept, broadly absurd comedies aren’t generally the sort of things that make for great sequels. After you’ve been introduced to a humorous concept, seen it explored a bit, and then put it to bed, it’s hard to revisit things without it all just feeling like more of the same—a stone that’s already been bled dry. It’s the law of diminishing returns that makes the recurring characters on SNL so reviled, and that led to the Hangover sequels being complete trash. So seeing as Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s strange look at the world of TV news anchors, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, was about the most absurd, high-concept comedy ever, it was with great reluctance that I went into its new sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.
And, for the most part, my fears proved to be founded. While it’s kind of nice for a few seconds to see Ferrell and crew (Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell, and David Koechner) dressed back as the old characters, it doesn’t take long before watching the movie starts to feel like you’re listening to someone tell you a joke that you’ve already heard them tell before. The film also gets pretty story-heavy, to the point where not only does the setup take too long to get everything put into place, but so many subplots eventually get established that the juggling of them starts to make the second act drag as well—and drag in a way where there aren’t even many laughs from random asides to keep you interested either.
The good news is that the third act picks up quite a bit, and the big finale gets so completely crazy in all of the right ways that it almost redeems the whole movie entirely. This is the point of the comedy reviewing process where you start to want to get into specifics about what worked and what didn’t humor wise, but that’s a fine line to walk without getting into a territory where you spoil all of the jokes, so instead of dealing with that, let’s just skip it. The gist of Anchorman 2 is that, if you were down with the absolute absurdity of the first Anchorman, you’re probably going to find a handful of things to laugh at in this one as well. Just temper your expectations and hang in there, because mostly it’s more of the same, and there are a few stretches where things start looking kind of bleak.
