Anchorman (2004)

Director:

Adam McKay

Starring:

Will Ferrell

Synopsis:

Comedy about chauvinistic 70s news anchor. Fantastic.

Review:

Not often that I rate a comedy so highly. But this had me laughing throughout. This new (ok, not really new) crop of SNL alumni make a mixed bag of films, and for me this is the best in a while.

Not an easy film to review, as a summary of the plot doesn't sound funny, listing the actors doesn't guarantee comedy, and the fun of this film is the jokes. And they keep coming.

Dumb and Dumber was not a benchmark for comedy, but it was pretty indicative of well-produced post-SNL comedy films. If you find the gags funny, you'll love the whole thing. If you don't, you'll hate it (like most people did with Ace Ventura). I may be reading too much into this film, but the humour was not as lowest-common-denominator as D&D, and the jokes were as frequent. I could do a list here of a ranking of this sort of film, and hell, I will.

Anchorman
Zoolander
Starsky & Hutch
Mystery Men
all other film with this lot in not including the Wes Anderson films...
......
Dodgeball - Pure Garbage

If you don't like Ferrell's character, you will hate the movie, but for me he is one of the most well-developed characters in (film) comedy [Alan Partridge doesn't count], and there are actually constant jokes in this film. Unlike Dodgeball or Mr. 3000.

I realise that to give it a rating of '9' I should say deep and interesting things about why is is funny, but for me there is one requisite for a comedy film. Make Me Laugh.

this did