Is Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy a dumb movie or is it in fact colossally dumb? Stupid, or stupendously stupid? These are the sorts of hairline distinctions that a viewer must grapple with while watching comic actor Will Ferrell's latest film, because ultimately there is little else to talk about.
Anchorman, the story of one well-meaning but sexist reporter's comeuppance, is yet another example of what should have been a one-joke Saturday Night Live skit somehow dripping through the cracks and on to the big screen.
To be sure, the cast, which includes Christina Applegate (Married with Children), Paul Rudd (Friends, The Cider House Rules) and Steve Carrell (Bruce Almighty), with cameos by Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller and Tim Robbins, embraces the inanity of the production set in the 1970s.
Sometimes you feel like you are watching a bunch of fraternity buddies hamming it up in front of the camcorder for posterity. And that's not necessarily such a bad thing. Take Old School, another movie in the Ferrell oeuvre. That movie, about a bunch of married men who decide to return to college and start a fraternity, was squarely in the stupid-but-funny-movie camp. Yes, with its 'us' versus 'them' template, it shamelessly lifted from classics such as Animal House. And no, it didn't have a plot to speak of. That said, there was some sense of progression and, if nothing else, its one scene of the world's most heartfelt but profane wedding singer was something I have found myself rewinding to and watching repeatedly, it was that funny.
Sure, Anchorman has its laughs. Will Ferrell is earnest as ever as Ron Burgundy, San Diego's most trusted and dim news anchor, a much beloved local figure who dishes out the kind of insipid local news stories that America's viewers somehow love. Burgundy is also a man whose idea of making a pass is saying things like 'I'd like to be on you'. But this come-on, and numerous others, are coldly deflected by Veronica Corningstone (Applegate, with a redone nose), an ambitious, blonde TV reporter who is unwilling to play by the old, misogynist rules.
This is, of course, a nightmare for Burgundy's manly and raunchy crew, if a bit of a mystery for Burgundy himself. It gets even more confusing for him after he and Corningstone fall for each other. Their first night of passion, in one of the movie's high points, is hilariously rendered in animation with each of them riding unicorns through a psychedelic cloudscape.
Burgundy's world begins to crumble when Corningstone gets a chance to anchor the evening newscast in his absence. Her performance is surprisingly good, and not just for a woman, and soon she's co-anchor, willing to do anything to keep her job.
The question is: will Ron Burgundy keep his? And will the newsroom get better as it diversifies and sees its patriarchal ways dismantled? And just how many jokes about erections, vaginas, whores, and severed limbs can a motion picture pack in? As Ron Burgundy says, in conclusion to his daily newscast, "Stay classy."
