Starring - Will Ferrell, Steve Carrell, Paul Rudd
Written by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay
Directed by Adam McKay
In 2004, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy arrived in cinemas with little fanfare and gradually developed a huge following. Just shy of a decade later, The Legend Continues arrives to be greeted with the kind of expectations that any film would struggle to meet.
Ferrell and McKay's response to these expectations is not to stray too far from what made the first film work. Once again, Burgundy is confronted with a woman who challenges him both professionally and romantically, and once again the film follows the arc of his fall from grace and his attempts to redeem himself. And, once again, there's a star-packed inter-newsteam brawl.
At its best, Anchorman 2 is a hugely entertaining follow-up to the original. However, the film struggles to reach such heights consistently as it juggles too many plotlines. As well as the returning characters - including Brick, who is given more of a storyline this time round - the script has to share screen time between Ron's relationship with rival Jack Lime, his superiors at the Global News Network, and his ex-wife's new partner (played brilliantly by Greg Kinnear.)
The first Anchorman was so packed with jokes that they managed to stitch together a whole other film using leftover scenes. The Legend Continues is better than most comedies out there, but it fails to live up to the first film's DVD spin-off, let alone the first film itself. It may be a reasonably entertaining comedy, but the team have proved themselves capable of doing so much more with these characters, and sadly this film can't help disappointing.
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