Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Anchorman 2 is awkward-funny, cringe-inducing, entertaining, and a surprisingly harsh commentary on the state of new media. If you liked the first Anchorman, you will almost certainly like this one. It has the same characters and and same style of humor and storytelling, but isn't the same movie shot again. If you have not seen the first Anchorman, I recommend renting it first. You probably don't strictly need to know what happened, but it's a good idea anyway.

The humor in the Anchorman series is not the sort that I normally enjoy - it is crass, sexist, racist, awkward, and generally offensive. Somehow, though, it manages to be charming enough to make it watchable, and then passes beyond that to actually funny. Maybe the obviousness of the parody is what makes it work, I don't know.

The sequel shifts the setting from San Diego to New York, resets the person-professional conflict that drove the first movie, and introduces a plethora of new characters to go along with the new plot. Notable among these are James Marsden's character, Jack Lime, as Ron Burgundy's news rival, and Greg Kinnear's character, Gary, as his love rival. Both of them are able to stand up to Will Ferrell's outsized screen personality, which can't be easy.

The movie is, of course, absurd. This is its main selling point. Along the way it also takes a pretty hard shot at the current newscast business model. Explaining more would trend toward spoiler territory, but I appreciate that the filmmakers recognized the opportunity to use their period comedy movie to point out something that is wrong with our world.


1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
23. Oz the Great and Powerful
24. Epic
25. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
26. The Wolverine
27. Elysium
28. Monsters University
29. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
30. The Grandmaster
31. Machete Kills
32. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
33. Carrie
34. The Great Gatsby
35. The Lone Ranger
36. This is the End