A few slow moments between jokes but nothing major
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
What's the movie about? The film is set in the 1970's and shows the life of a news anchorman called Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell). Focusing on the fierce battles between local news channels for ratings Anchorman also highlights, in a comical way, the shallow self centeredness of those involved who cared more about their looks and ability to read from a teleprompter more than anything or anyone else. The movie also shows the difficulties women had in a predominately male role as Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) attempts to become the first ever female anchorman.
Ron Burgundy is the anchorman on the KVWN network and his team consists of sports reporter Champ Kind (David Koechner), weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), and on-the-spot reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd). Upon Veronica's arrival to the network things start to get worse for Ron culminating in him being late for a broadcast! Veronica fills in at short notice, making history as the first female anchor, and much to Ron's disgust she is a big hit. Will her new found success affect their behind the scenes relationship?
My Thoughts: My girlfriend rented this movie a while back and I was sure this wasn't going to be very exciting; I mean how exciting can the news be…? Thankfully I was wrong and this movie turned out to be very entertaining; providing a good storyline, acting and hilarious jokes. Will Ferrell always cracks me up and if you like the jokes from 'Old School' then you will like this. On screen Will and the rest of his team provide good chemistry bouncing jokes off each other help to keep the storyline entertaining even during the 'boring bits'; every movie has some of these. The jokes continue throughout the movie and range from stupid comments to sexist remarks. The funniest part of the film has to be the big punch up between the local news teams where we see small roles by Vince Vaughn, Tim Robbins, Ben Stiller, and Luke Wilson.
Overall this movie provides some good laughs and can be compared to 'Dodgeball' in terms of jokes and comical characters. The actors give good performances but Will Ferrell steals the show in my view. Recommended if you like 'stupid comedies'.
The DVD: After seeing this movie I decided to buy it as it was very reasonably priced at around £6. Although it is only 1 disc the video and audio quality are excellent. In terms of special features this DVD contains quite a few funny moments. The audio commentary by Adam McKay and star Will Ferrell provides some good extra laughs but I am not really a fan of commentaries and definitely would not watch this feature more than once. A number of deleted scenes are included which are fairly funny and definitely worth seeing (don't want to spoil them). Again this goes for the blooper reel which contains more laughs and are always welcome in comedy movies. The making of featurette provides a behind the scenes look at the movie production and I would recommend seeing this if you enjoyed the movie.
Director: Adam McKay Main Cast: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, Fred Willard, Chris Parnell, Vince Vaughn.
Rating: 15 Run Time: 1 hour and 34 minutes (approx) Release Year: 2004 Discs: 1 Video: Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic Audio: English - Dolby Digital (5.1)
More details
Soundtrack
Good
How does it compare to others by the same director?
Not applicable
Value for Money
Good
What format are you reviewing?
DVD
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