Jack is Lame, Ron Burgundy is not

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (2013)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The original "Anchorman" was nothing more than a frenzied Warner Brothers cartoon that poked fun at late-night news with a dimmer-than-thou Ron Burgundy who was not exactly adept at his profession. "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues" continues along the same streak and, though not as cartoonishly funny as the original, it made me smile from beginning to end despite the occasional lull.

Things get off on the wrong foot for Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) right from the start. New York's top news anchor, Mack (expertly played by Harrison Ford), is retiring and decides to fire Ron ("You are the worst anchor of all time") and give Ron's wife and co-anchor, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), his job! Ron is furious, leaves his family and takes a job at Sea World in San Diego (his home turf) where he drunkenly introduces dolphins to an audience. Ron also gets fired from Sea World and is miraculously asked to anchor a 24-hour news channel called GNN (the parallels with CNN and today's round-the-clock news are not subtle) where he will be announcing the news...between 2 and 5 am. Ron can't do this alone and brings back his old buddies including mentally challenged Brick (Steve Carrell), former meteorologist, who attends his own funeral; the energetic former sports announcer Champ Kind (David Koechner) who owns his own KFC-type restaurant that serves fried bats not chicken; and the kind photographer Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) who specializes in taking cute kitten photos - he was once the field reporter.

Added to the mix of loony characters are newcomers such as Kristen Wiig as GNN's receptionist who stares at ringing phones, and Meagan Good as Linda, the temperamental overseer of GNN who is strangely attracted to Ron. A dinner scene sets the bar for Ron Burgundy's inability to communicate with Linda's family like a normal person - it is a tremendously funny and cringeworthy scene like most of "Anchorman 2." Also worth noting is a far more arrogant anchorman than Ron ever could be, Jack Lime (James Marsden) who makes a ratings bet with Ron - if Jack loses, he has to change his name to Jack Lame. Any other actor aside from Ferrell suggesting such a change would have been, well, lame. Ferrell just makes it gold.

"Anchorman 2" is not the laugh riot of the original, which was hardly one of the best comedies ever made but definitely a cut above most in recent years. An extended sequence where Ron Burgundy is blind after an accident hardly elicited as many laughs as I would hope. At nearly two hours, half hour longer than the original, the movie doesn't maintain the same degree of consistency and much more comic gold could've been mined with the talents of Marsden and Christina Applegate. But for the occasional gag that is, well, lame, there are many others that made me laugh out loud and smile. The final battle between all the networks in the middle of a park (there are some unexpected cameos) strikes the right balance between buffoonish and the equally absurd - how often do you see Harrison Ford change into a werewolf? Ferrell, his buddies and director Adam McKay have continued to make me smile with their cartoonish, anarchic view of the news world. I am all for a third go-round.