College Downtime - Anchorman Movie Review (2004)
Written by Raffman - July 10th, 2004
Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, Kevin Corrigan, Chuck D
Director: Adam McKay
Rated: PG-13
Rating: * * *
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Back in the day, probably before any of you were born, there was a time before cable. Yes, I know that is hard to comprehend, but for the moment just close your eyes and try to picture it. Back then instead of Wolf Blitzer and Bill O'Reilly the sunny city nestled down in Southern California had Ron Burgundy as their anchorman. The story revolves around Ferrell's character, who is at the center of attention in San Diego until the scary-looking, "I had one-too many facelifts" Christina Applegate comes along. Arriving from a popular east coast network, she challenges Ferrell for not only his network anchor position, but to become the world's first female network anchor as well. With an outstanding supporting cast and a stellar, "SNL-like" feel to the script, as well as a few surprises, "Anchorman" is simply delicious in every meaning of the word.
So now that I've confessed I'm in love with this movie, was there anything wrong about it? Well if you have ever seen reruns of "Married with Children" you may not recognize Christina Applegate right away. It seems as if someone is constanly pulling at the back part of her scalp the entire movie, as she probably had a "Buy 20 facelifts - Get the 21st free!" card or something to the local, Hollywood chop shop. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't stop staring at her freaking face ... it was like Austin Powers yelling, "MOLE!" at Fred Savage in the third film. If you can manage to pull yourself together and get past whatever the hell happened to her, then you'll simply love this movie and everything it has to offer.
Lately it seems that cast surprises seem to be happening constantly, and "Anchorman" is no letdown. Feeling the ripple-effect from the success of "Old School", you'll be seeing many a surprise appearance from all the past comedies like Jack Black, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, and many, many more. While these appearances are nothing more than just that, they do provide for a nice change of pace, regardless if they make you fall out of your stick-ass theatre seat laughing, or if they make you go, "Huh?" "Anchorman", at least to me, went a little overboard with the guest appearances, but maybe that's because I think it's ridiculous when I hear a theatre full of people clapping for something. Like when the "Lucasfilm Ltd." appears on the screen before a new Star Wars movie; I can't explain it.
If you like Saturday Night Live, hell if you like Will Ferrell even the slightest bit you have to see this movie. Will Ferrell is in his absolute prime, and he makes everyone else around him that much more so as well. I don't know how he can do it really, the guy is so goofy; how the hell does he not just bust out laughing all the time? I'm guessing they had quite a few outtakes for this film, but of course it's just a guess so what the hell do I know. Aside from Christina Applegate's horrid, horrid face she did an awesome job and really supplemented Ferrell well in her role. Even if you haven't seen a single trailor for this movie, you have to go see this movie or you'll f*cking regret waiting for it to come out on DVD. Don't put this one off, it's the best comedy we'll get this summer and it's easily worth the outrageous movie prices to go see. Hell it's even educational, like for example did you know that "San Diego" was discovered by the Germans in 1712? Or that "San Diego" is latin for "Huge Whale Vagina"? It's truly the best of both worlds, to laugh and learn at the same time. Go see "Anchorman" tonight! In the meantime, "Stay classy cyberspace."
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