Anchorman Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)July 17th, 2004
ANCHORMAN -- THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
"There was a time," intones the pseudo-serious narrator at the opening to ANCHORMAN -- THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY, "a time before cable when the anchorman reigned supreme." Reportedly, after years of shopping around his script for ANCHORMAN without any luck, Will Ferrell got the green light for this project as soon as the studios started seeing the green coming from Ferrell's recent hits such as OLD SCHOOL and ELF. Big mistake.
An outlandish comedy that celebrates stupid, sexist, 1970's humor, the movie tells the story of Ron Burgundy and his newsroom buddies. These four dumb white guys, whose collective IQs are just barely into triple digits, party the night away when they're not reporting on fluff pieces like the long pregnancy of a koala at the zoo. The tone of this comedy is way off, and the only laughter heard in our audience was a few random snickers.
The story concerns the dreaded D-word. The networks have demanded that the local television station practice a little "diversity" by hiring a woman reporter, who -- gasp! -- wants to anchor the news herself someday. Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), one of the news crew, explains his reservations to Ed Harken (Fred Willard), the local station manager. "I love my ladies," Brian tells Ed to show that he isn't prejudiced against women in general, "but they don't belong in the news room." Funny huh? Ugh.
When Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), their token woman arrives, Ron immediately makes one of his signature ridiculous passes at her. "You have an absolutely breath-taking heinie," he tells her, making her exceedingly uncomfortable. "I want to become friends with it." The impossible-to-believe script has her sleeping with him in no time and has him bragging about it on television after promising not to even mention their relationship at the office.
Veronica does get one thing right. "This is pathetic!" she tells Ron after one of his crude jokes. The whole movie is pathetic.
ANCHORMAN -- THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY runs 1:39. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual humor, language and comic violence" and would be acceptable for kids around 12 and up.
My son Jeffrey, age 15, thought the film was awful and pointless and gave it just one *. He said that it was "a whole lot of nothing pieced together."
The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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