And we are back. You are tuned into TWE News. All the news you need to know about The Walker Estate. Kyle Walker reporting. Good afternoon.
Today’s top story has to do with a legendary anchorman from the city of San Diego. His fame has led to the creation of a second movie – Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, a movie released by Apatow Productions and Paramount pictures.
Who is this anchorman of legend? If anyone has seen the last movie, you would know him as Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell). Ron is known for his ego, arrogance, quirkiness and self-proclaimed charm. But is Ron as good as he was in the last movie? With Ron being in a new movie, he is on a fresh slate. He needs to wow the Hollywood ratings with high grosses and exceptional reviews. Only then can be reclaim the number one spot again. Is Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues worthy of the number one title, or is it destined to fade into obscurity, like a a washed up has-been who will never see the light of day? In this exclusive, we will find out.
Ron Burgundy is truly a man of legend. His entrance in the opening scene had him fighting a shark. But does the shark end up beating him? We don’t know this.
The scene switches to New York, where we see the opening scenes of the movie. Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) are on top of the media broadcasting world, married and working for the World News Center in downtown Manhattan. One day, a retiring Mack Tannen (Harrison Ford), New York’s most famous nightly news anchor gives the promotion to Veronica and fires Ron for his continually sloppy performance on the air. Jealous of his wife’s success, he storms out of the house, leaving her with their six-year-old son Walter (Judah Nelson).
Six months later, Ron is back in San Diego, barely able to hold down a job, due to his depression. After getting fired from Sea World, he attempts suicide but fails miserably.
Just after this, Ed Harken (Fred Willard) walks in during Ron’s failed suicide attempt. Shocked at this, he offers Ron a job at GNN, the world’s first 24-hour news network. Ron accepts the job and it’s off to New York. But not without reassembling the most memorable news team from the previous movie. He gets reunited with Champ Kind (David Koechner), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell).
With the team in New York, the action begins. Ron wants to become number one again, but he is up against Jack Lime (James Marsden), who has a primetime slot. Ron and his team, however, have a 2-5 a.m. slot. If Ron can get higher ratings than Jack, then Jack gets his slot. If not, Ron’s done for. Does Ron and his crew have what it takes to beat Jack in the ratings? And what about Ron’s wife? Is she seeing another man? And what about that shark scene at the beginning of the movie? Does Ron win the battle against the shark? Well, I have the answer, folks. But unfortunately, you will have to see the movie yourselves if you want all the answers.
The length of this movie was nothing to complain about at all. This was Ron’s story, and every minute was used in a resourceful manner. The flow was there, and Ron didn’t lead me on in the plot.
While Ron did reunite with his old compadres, there were a few new people in his life. There was Linda Jackson (Meagan Good), Ron’s “black” manager for GNN (which caught Ron by surprise at first), Chani (Kristen Wiig), Brick’s love interest and Gary (Greg Kinnear), Veronica’s new love interest and a psychologist that, according to Ron, is a mind reader. Besides these new appearances, there were several cameos, which all came at the appropriate time.
Ron’s story did not have anything that was an eyesore to me. When Ron made his story into a movie, it must have been his goal. No nitpicks. Because he already picked all the nits out. The only thing that I would’ve wanted to see was a scene that was deleted from the final cut of the movie. Whatever this was, it will definitely be found in the DVD and Blu Ray release.
Aside from that, there were plenty of things that I enjoyed about the movie. There were a couple of funny scenes. One with Linda Jackson and one with Chani. Neither of them will be spoiled, but I will leave that up to you to find out what that are. I liked the inclusion of the news team brawl, as no Anchorman movie is complete without it. Again, I won’t say who all the teams are, but there were a lot of cameos that you will enjoy.
How did Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues do? Is Ron’s story on the way to number one? If you were to compare this movie to the first one overall, it did just that. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy grossed $28.4 million during its opening weekend. This was a little higher than this year’s movie (from 2013), which only grossed $26.2 million during its opening weekend. With the current domestic gross, this year’s movie grossed at $118.3 million to the first Anchorman‘s $85.2 million. With the foreign grosses added in, the victory is even more clear. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy didn’t even gross $100 million, with a pathetic $90.6 million worldwide gross. Anchorman 2, on the other hand, is grossing $158.3 million. If you were to compare its performance overall, it’s a far cry from Avatar‘s $2.78 billion. But fortunately, Ron is not comparing himself to blue titans that can’t be touched. His story stands alone, and is to be compared to the previous one. And in using this definition, we have a winner. I liked the movie and how Ron made me laugh. I enjoyed the news team brawl and the element of drama that was placed in this movie. With the comedy, story, and addition of new characters, there was much to enjoy in this installment. Despite the ego, arrogance, quirkiness and self-proclaimed charm, Ron has become a legend once again, despite the deleted scenes that weren’t included. I give Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues a 4 out of 5.
And that’s our news for this afternoon. From all of us at TWE News, we bid you farewell. This is Kyle Walker signing out. To everyone in cyberspace, you stay classy.