Wake Up Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
Sometimes during the filming of a major comedy, the director of said comedy manages to pick up so much improv material (usually much more than expected) that it turns out that there is enough extra footage to POSSIBLY justify a whole entire second movie out of the initial concept. The most famous example in many circles is none other than Caddyshack where director Harold Ramis duly filmed all of Brian Doyle-Murrayās original script, a coming of age comedy drama about the trials and tribulations of a group of young caddies working at a posh country club before the arrivals of Chase, Dangerfield and Bill Murray to film their intended cameos and instead they wound up adlibbing up such a storm that they literally built and created their own storyline that had almost nothing to do with that original script which led to Ramis (in trying to cohesively combine the two concurrent storylines only to wind up with a 3 and an half hour cut) being forced to excise the majority of the caddies coming of age material in favor of the funnier Chase / Dangerfield / Murray version with only faint traces of the original story left intact (keeping in mind that Ted Knightās Judge Smails had always been meant to play a major role in both versions), greatly upsetting both Doyle-Murray and most of the younger actors who had hoped for greater stardom from the project. Flash forward to 2004 and the production of Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (perhaps the one golden jewel in the otherwise sophomoric and preprocessed career of one Will Ferrell) and as it turns out, a clash of two major story ideas being haggled over by Ferrell and director Adam McKay, one being the hysterical Battle Of The Sexes angle between Ferrellās chauvinistic Burgundy and Christina Applegateās Veronica Corningstone (the predominant version that made the final cut) and the other being the far more subversive (but less effective) tale of a radical (yet pacifist) terrorist group (led by Kevin Corrigan) who rob banks even as their true mission is to expose the local media as being the liars that they are with Burgundy being right at the top of their hit list. A fascinating idea to be sure (and one which many would agree does constitute the real life mainstream media in general), but the execution of this idea nonetheless winds up being rather hit or miss, especially when story elements from the original film are directly recycled and woven into the narrative here (particularly obvious cut bits like the series of prank calls to Corningstone that didnāt make it in the first time) including the blossoming romance with Burgundy and Corningstone which is acknowledged in the opening scenes before we start to engage in yet another āfeudā angle between the two of them that leads to Burgundy being fired (again) and hanging out in bars and public places where he is ridiculed (again). Meanwhile, the radicals continue their little run, at one point robbing a bank in a scene thatās actually a neat little spoof of Point Break and exacting a plan to kidnap the star crossed anchors so that their manifesto can be broadcast to the world. The film succeeds with a couple of interesting points such as the idea that while Burgundy may be lying to the people, he is virtually helpless without his teleprompter, which makes him almost free of any guilt since he is merely READING the lies out loud and not actually aware of what heās saying nor is he writing any of it himself. The film brings back most of the other primary characters as well including Steve Carellās retarded weatherman Brick Tamland (always down for a good fight or unknowingly eating out of the garbage can), Paul Ruddās field reporter Brian Fantana (at one point openly admitting that heās never been laid), Fred Willardās awesomely congenial news director (still having his problems dealing with his sonās school system as we even get to see his son as an onscreen character this time) and even Vince Vaughn coming back around as hated rival reporter Wes Mantooth. Only David Koechner (returning as Whammy sports guy Champ Kind) is stuck with the most embarrassingly unfunny bit from either movie, an extended rant where his Champ not only admits to being gay, but also that heās madly in love with Burgundy himself (and what heād like to do to him), a scene that winds up going on for far too long and in addition seems to be making for a real life uncomfortable situation amongst the actors (including Koechner who probably figured that it would never leave the cutting room floor). The punchline ultimately comes when the news team invades the radicalsā hideout and Corrigan finally unveils the groupās manifesto (which he seemingly had been working on here and there the whole time) which turns out to be a fairly reasonable assessment of improvements that can be made (and eventually would be made considering that this was still being set during the 1970s) to both peopleās lives and society in general, drawing snorts of disgust from both Burgundy AND his fellow radicals over just how ridiculous and Pollyanna it all sounds. Certainly, for fans of Anchorman (keep in mind that a real, legitimate sequel would follow some time after), this is definitely a nice supplement, but in terms of the obvious recycling in order to pad out the running time and a couple of REALLY unfunny bits, it falls quite short in matching the brilliance of the originalā¦
5/10