Stay Crappy, Ron Burgundy

At the height of Will Ferrell's movie career, the former Saturday Night Star was more unavoidable than Adam Sandler, Chris Farley and David Spade combined. Arguably his magnum opus was the 2004 comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy which, despite being a minor hit at best, is probably the most fondly remembered of his comedic works. So when Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues was announced last year, it was met by fans of the original with great hope for a continuing franchise. Sadly, while it managed to accrue decent reviews and a better box office draw, its release during the uber-crowded holiday season caused it to fly under more than a few radars, mine included. The result was a so-so theatrical run that was almost completely forgotten by most. So now that a little time has passed, does this sequel stack up to the fun and quotable- and at times, brilliant - modern classic?

Proof that jheri curls are just plain wrong

The film takes place several years after the conclusion of the first Anchorman, with renowned newsman Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) being fired due to his sloppy work. After sinking into drink and depression and separating from his much more successful wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), Ron is recruited to anchor an all-new, 24-hour news channel. Alongside his loyal news team (Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and David Koechner), Ron wants to make the most of his second chance, though he is handicapped by a graveyard shift timeslot, a smug, superior rival in prime-time anchorman Jack Lime (James Marsden) and learning to operate under the heel of black, female studio chief Linda Jackson (Meagan Good). In overcoming those obstacles, Ron Burgundy succeeds in ways nobody could fathom and changes the way people watch the news for all time.

I'd say Old vs. New, but James Marsden is actually 40.

Well, there's no nice way to say this: here the sequel is vastly inferior to the original. It's not that Anchorman 2 doesn't have its moments, or isn't particularly funny when it wants to be. It's genuinely great seeing the four leads back again, their camaraderie just as fresh and entertaining as it was nine years prior. Returning director Adam McKay gets good performances out of his actors, and while not every line of dialogue is gold, the best ones can slip under the radar and catch the audience completely unaware, making the film work hard for its laughs. The film also takes an interesting turn in its portrayal of the news, in this case its look at racial integration, the empowerment of African Americans in the media, and the transformation of the news from the early days of Walter Kronkite to the buzz-word TMZ and FOX News style of today's guerilla journalism. No, it's not meant to be educational, but that Anchorman 2 bothers to acknowledge it at all is reticent of the brains behind it. Finally, there are dozens of laudable cameo appearances, culminating in a sequel "News Team Battle Royale" that actually manages to beat the very good one from the first entry. Simply put, when Anchorman 2 is on its A-game, it appears unstoppable.

That moustache is still hypnotic, though...

But for every worthy laugh, awesome cameo and genuine moment of mirth, there are dozens of dead zones where just about everything goes wrong. For some reason, the editing team does a lousy job pacing this flick, which is strange when you consider that it's the same team that worked with McKay on The Other Guys, Step Brothers and the original Anchorman. So either Brent White was seriously off his meds, or nothing could possibly be salvageable from the lackadaisical story penned by Ferrell and McKay. The script does nothing of value with Applegate, who is still shoved in to the detriment of a superior, more interesting lead female character in Good's sassy, brilliant studio head. Whole storylines are introduced as a means to present some sort of conflict for Ron, but are then scrapped halfway through without any true resolution. McKay and Ferrell have ABSOLUTELY no idea how to use a creative genius such as Kristen Wiig, despite setting her character up in the most perfect of ways. And while Judah Nelson is positively the worst child actor I've ever seen, I still can't put all the blame on him because I'm not 100% certain that wasn't intentional. And either way, it didn't work.

"Adam McKay doesn't recognize my true worth."

Frankly, it all falls down to one solitary issue: Anchorman 2 just isn't all that funny. It TRIES to pull out the big laughs, and when the script focuses on the interactions between the News Team, the outrageous cameos and some of the more nuanced dialogue, it manages to hit that sweet spot to which all comedies aspire. But too often the movie shoots for the stars, only to fall tragically short. Worse, the fake melodramatics are punched up a bit TOO much, making that lack of true humor all the more noticeable. And even the really funny bits aren't all that memorable. Any fan of the original Anchorman probably has a dozen favorite lines of dialogue that could be rattled off the top of their head, but there just isn't that level of immortalising here, with the only ones that stick being call-backs to those great lines from the first movie.

And this is why we hate them.

The result is that Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues might amuse you for a couple of hours, but you'll forget why almost immediately afterward. Yes, there are a few funny bits, and again that News Team brawl - though you have to wait until the end - is one of the bawdiest things I've seen of late. But this is definitely a fan-only event, and even those who loved the original Anchorman won't be all that impressed by the watered-down schlock that wasn't worth a ten year wait. If you're desperate for a comedy to see, and you loved the original, there's definitely something appealing about this sequel. But those expecting a return to the glory days of Will Ferrell will be sorely tested by yet another missed mark.

School's Out for Summer

This weekend didn't afford me any time to venture to the theater and see one of the few big screen releases I haven't yet seen (Midnight in Paris and Tree of Life will come soon), so it was up to Netflix to get me through the void. This time the film in question was another pick by Southland Dan, the 2001 camp comedy Wet Hot American Summer. I remember almost nothing about this film when it was first released, only the cartoonish movie poster and bad reviews that accompanied it. The same weekend Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes opened to the tune of $65 million, Wet Hot American Summer made less than the big screen re-release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which I actually DID see. A critical and commercial failure, the film released in only twelve theaters across the country, drawing in less than $300 thousand. Created by members of one-time MTV comedy troupe The State, it eventually became a cult hit, mostly on the strength of its satire and all-star cast. Despite it being Dan's favorite film, I was unsure how to proceed. After all, Dan and I miss more often than we hit, and often the reason one of us likes a film is the reason the other hates it. There's a reason I refer to him as "Southland Dan" in the first place, and it isn't because of a film we agree on.

Just before her career went nowhere

Taking place in 1981 at Camp Firewood, a Jewish summer camp, the story (if you can call it that) follows the final day of camp activities before the campers go home to their parents and the counselors go home to theirs. Of the vast amount of input shown, there are two distinct storylines. In the first, Camp Director Beth (Janeane Garofalo) tries to capture the eye of associate professor Henry (David Hyde Pierce) who just happens to live near the campgrounds. In the second, nice guy counselor Coop (Michael Showalter) falls for camp hottie Katie (Marguerite Moreau), who is involved with bad-boy Andy (Paul Rudd). Both lead up (along with a half dozen non-sequiter asides) to the big talent show that caps off the final day of summer, which might also be the camp's last day of existence.

It's time to play: Name That Preppie!

Let's ignore the fact that this camp is run by the kind of teens who pretty much created Jason Voorhees, and that the film contains far too many stories to be encapsulated within a single day. That's obviously intended. In fact, it's obvious how inspired the filmmaking process was by sketch comedy, as most sequential scenes had little to nothing to do with one another, and often seem to break logic probes in their desire to tell the next joke. Sure, that's hardly a knock with this type of film, but it does make the whole thing feel disjointed and unbelievable. A little of that is okay; a lot of that spoils the milk.

Camp Firewood's entry-level Jedi program

The film does feature some funny stuff in between long pauses of wait, and of course almost none of it has anything to do with the main tale. Tops is easily Christopher Meloni as a disgruntled short-order cook who talks about surviving the Vietnam war and utters unintentional self-revelations to those around of him. If you ever wanted to see Law & Order: SVU's Elliot Stabler comment on his "dick cream" or announce that he's about to hump a refrigerator, then that would be more than enough to recommend this film. Other good scenes include sex-driven Victor (Ken Marino) undergoing off-screen heroics to save a raft full of kids, Andy (Rudd) disposing of witnesses to his supervisory negligence, and a scene in which many of the counselors visit the local town "if only for an hour". It's a shame that these scenes have far too much of a break between them, as the vast majority of the film is utterly unfunny, lacking even in interest.

Yes, this is a pre-stardom Elizabeth Banks. No, she was no good then, either.

The really sad thing is there simply wasn't much interesting for this talented cast to do. Future stars like Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper and Elizabeth Banks mixed well with veterans like Molly Shannon and Michael Ian Black, but there simply wasn't enough for the various characters to perform. Some, like Rudd, were at least a part of the main story, while Shannon was segregated into her own private skit for much of the film to the benefit of no one. And it doesn't help that the funniest thing Janeane Garofalo ever did was associate with Ben Stiller. Am I the only one who doesn't get how she became a big star, even if it was only for a short while? I get the feeling that if Wet Hot American Summer had been produced as a regular television program instead of a motion picture, the storytelling would have worked much better, and the film's aimless approach to narration would have felt much smoother. Instead we have a movie that could have been funny being merely silly, and not always in a good way.

I don't think he likes where his hand has gone...

I suppose I should have seen this coming. Dan almost certainly should have seen this coming, but to be honest I'm not sure how he couldn't. I barely made it through Wet Hot American Summer, a poor film with some good bits that is more interesting for what came after it than the actual film product itself. There are some films that I can understand becoming cult hits; this isn't one of them. I know I'll have those who disagree with me on this, but I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone, as it's not funny enough for comedy fans and not even the parody and satire aspects are good enough to recommend. If you have to see it, fast forward to the Chris Meloni scenes and a particularly humorous road trip. That's all you really need from this film, and even that's more than most people really deserve to see.