Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Andre Gonzales

Super funny. Love this movie. One of my favorite movies.

TheFilmCritics.org

There is a fine line between gloriously stupid and simply stupid, and Anchorman spends a lot of time wandering around on the wrong side of it. The film follows San Diego newsman Ron Burgundy, a preening relic of macho television who suddenly finds his kingdom threatened by the arrival of an ambitious female reporter. It is a premise with plenty of comic potential, but the movie rarely knows when to stop pushing the joke. Will Ferrell is undeniably committed to the character. His performance has a cartoonish confidence that occasionally produces a genuinely funny moment, while the absurd supporting cast gives the newsroom an appropriately bizarre atmosphere. The movie has a loose, anything-goes quality that can be charming when the silliness clicks. Unfortunately, those moments are far less frequent than the film seems to believe. The biggest problem is that it simply isn’t very funny. Anchorman throws joke after joke at the screen, but volume isn’t the same thing as quality. Some gags land through sheer ridiculousness, while others feel like sketches that were stretched until they stopped being funny. The movie’s stupidity could have been its greatest asset if it had been paired with sharper writing; instead, too much of it feels like randomness being mistaken for wit. The film wants Ron’s sexism to be part of the joke, but it keeps returning to the same material until the joke becomes the movie itself. What might have worked as occasional satire of insecure, chauvinistic men instead starts to feel like the entire punchline is simply, “Women are stupid.” The misogyny overstays its welcome so badly that it becomes difficult to laugh at the characters rather than wonder why the film is still making the same point. There is also a strange missed opportunity in the rivalry between Ron and Veronica. The premise could have produced a much sharper satire about changing workplace attitudes and male insecurity, but the movie often settles for cartoonish insults and juvenile behavior. Christina Applegate brings enough intelligence and poise to make Veronica compelling, yet the script frequently treats her as a target rather than giving her the material she deserves. Anchorman has developed a reputation as a comedy classic, and there is certainly a cultish energy to its cast and absurdist style. But watching it now, the laughs are inconsistent and the central joke has aged particularly poorly. There are flashes of inspired stupidity here, but not enough to overcome a movie that mistakes repetition for escalation. At its best, it is gleefully ridiculous; at its worst, it is just ridiculous. 5/10.