I wasn’t a huge fan of Anchorman or, really, any Will Ferrell comedies (don’t hate him and some are better than others but I guess I’ve never drank his Kool-Aid). But it had its absurdist moments and I laughed enough to go see Anchorman 2 today… and it’s absurd and I laughed a bit but the movie is way the hell too long and has a long stretch where it’s just not funny at all (imo). It has the random and absurd humor and wildly racist and sexist jokes of the kind you can get away with (apparently) if the guy saying them is supposed to be an awful person. The premise of the movie is that the first 24-hour news channel is going on the air in 1980 (not CNN, of course) so the target of the humor is an attack on 24 hour news in general and Fox News in particular (“lets not tell the people what they need to hear, let’s tell them what they want to hear”, all patriotism all the time, police chases as news, weather men standing in wind, etc.). It’s odd that the movie – or probably more accurately Will Ferrell – wanted to make this big silly comedy and stuff an actual message about how terrible the 24 hour news cycle is… and it IS terrible… but I’m not sure this is a particularly good vehicle to spread the good word. But I guess I can give it a point or two of credit for trying.

Score: 65