Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

A distressingly underwhelming sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues follows Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy as he takes a job with New York’s first 24-hour news network – with the movie detailing Ron’s exploits alongside characters both new (Harrison Ford’s Mack Tannen, James Marsden’s Jack Lime) and old (Paul Rudd’s Brian Fantana, David Koechner’s Champ Kind). There’s little doubt that Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues fares best in its opening stretch, as director Adam McKay, working from a script cowritten with Ferrell, does a nice job of recapturing the original’s gleefully irreverent and off-the-wall vibe – with the amiable atmosphere perpetuated by the welcome return of virtually all of the first film’s characters. (By that same token, however, it’s clear immediately that Steve Carell’s Brick Tamland is no longer the loveable idiot he once was, as Carell delivers a gratingly over-the-top performance that drains the character of all his affable qualities.) It’s only as the movie shambles into its aggressively uneven midsection that one’s interest begins to flag, as McKay, perhaps unsurprisingly, devotes an inordinate amount of screentime to sequences of an overlong and, more often than not, flat-out needless variety – with the filmmaker’s notorious reliance on improvisation paving the way for a movie that feels, for the most part, as if it were made up on the spot. There are, as a result, a preponderance of scenes and interludes that simply don’t work and wear out their welcome immediately, with the best and most obvious example of this an egregiously padded-out stretch detailing Ron’s bout with temporary blindness (ie it’s just pointless and unfunny). The shapeless atmosphere ultimately renders the film’s few amusing moments moot, and although the expected battle between newspeople is as fun as one might’ve hoped, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues has, unfortunately, long-since established itself as a misguided followup that’s unlikely to endure in the long run (which is a shame, certainly, given the cult-like status of its predecessor).

** out of ****