Anchorman 2: The Legend of Ron Burgundy Ends Here

(Spoiler alert)

I hardly ever write movie reviews, but after seeing Anchorman 2 recently I feel irritated enough to say something. The first Anchorman movie came out in 2004 and with the exception of the Austin Powers series, no film in recent history has resulted in more memes and oft-repeated catchphrases (“I’m kind of a big deal.”) then The Legend of Ron Burgundy. So, fans hoping for a sequel waited patiently almost ten years for the next Anchorman installment. What they got, unfortunately, was a lazy, sloppy, unimaginative retelling of the first Anchorman.

Every funny bit from the original movie is simply rehashed with a few minor alterations and updates. Really? After ten years, the writers (who include Will Ferrell) couldn’t come up with anything even slightly original? Do they have so little respect for fans of the first movie that they thought it would be okay to simply redo the jokes, and everyone would think that was hilarious?

And speaking of Austin Powers, the creators of Anchorman 2 were so lazy that they unabashedly ripped off a bit from one of Myer’s movies. When Burgundy meets the new African American producer, he can’t stop saying “black,” a direct lift from Power’s inability to stop saying “mole.”

Even the core storyline of the movie is off key. Basically, Ron Burgundy is credited with starting the vacuous infotainment trend prevalent in today’s network news. The more original approach, in my opinion, would have been to have Burgundy naively oppose the new trend and to fight quixotically for presenting actual news. This just strikes me as being more in keeping with his dolt-with-a-golden-heart character.

Anchorman 2 would have been a disappointment if they’d rushed it out on the heels of the first movie, but after 10 years, this bastard clone is inexcusable.