The Real Reason Anchorman 2 Couldn’t Live Up To The Original

Where's my map? There's no map. It's just green

No, there's a map there. Look at the monitor, right? Oh, God. Ron, where's my legs

This is Anchorman 2. It's a sequel that basically takes the dials of its predecessor and turns it up all the way to 11

But some things just aren't meant to go to 11. Why did you take it from us

You're clearly standing in front of us, Brick. Anchorman 2 was released in 2013, nearly a decade after the first film hit theaters

Anchorman, the legend of Ron Burgundy, became a cultural phenomenon that cemented Will Ferrell

as one of the biggest names in comedy at the time. That escalated quickly

While Anchorman 2 The Legend Continues fared far better than its predecessor at the box office

and received a fairer reception from critics, the film failed to generate success with audiences

Anchorman's style of comedy stints from director Adam McKay's decision to allow his actors to improvise a majority

of their dialogue throughout the film. Improvisation is often something that directors try to avoid

for a multitude of reasons. The first being that, from a production standpoint, it's a disaster

The filmmaking process is meticulous, and every detail of every script is planned and accounted for

With a focus on brevity, there's no real room for adding unnecessary dialogue that could

A, jeopardize the vision of the directors, writers, and producers, B, create insane continuity issues

with how the characters interact with one another, and C, confuse the editors in post-production

as to which takes and reactions to actually use throughout the film. Adam McKay began his career by mastering the craft of improvisational comedy

McKay was a performer on one of Chicago's most popular improv groups, and he was also a main stage performer at the Second City

McKay's ability to harness improv to his advantage could be likened to capturing lightning in a bottle

and it really shines the most in Anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Some of the deleted outtakes from the improv presented throughout the film

are some of the funniest moments, but they were cut for various reasons

primarily being that they didn't add much to the actual story. And people are hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of the rarest

That stench. Sounds like the inside of a fake leg That where Anchorman 2 gets things incredibly wrong Anchorman 2 makes the mistake of thinking that the only reason Anchorman was as successful as it was was due to how funny it was

But funny only works if it has reality to prop it up. Jokes told within a story can only be as strong

as the story is on its own. I'm telling you, she is a real ball buster

A real ice queen. Mmm. I just burned my tongue. But the story has to stand out on its own first

This is something that the original Anchorman does very well. When stripped of the comedy entirely, the first Anchorman film could potentially make

for a fairly high-stakes workplace drama. There's a power struggle, inter-office romance, people lose their careers

The spine of Anchorman is drama, and then uses that drama to support the absolute ridiculousness

of the characters presented within it. The result is that we become emotionally attached to the characters enough to jump on board

with them during the moments in which the director chooses to allow them to improvise

What is that? It smells like a turd covered in burnt hair. The filmmakers do the work in setting up the humor through the grounded narrative structure

There's a saying for this. It's called earning it. Anchorman 1 earns its laughs, and it earns them through grounding the comedy in reality

Think of comedy as a bunch of helium balloons. If you don't have anything weighing them down to Earth

they're going to fly further and further away from you until you can no longer see them, and they eventually destroy themselves

However, with the proper amount of oppositional force, You have something delightful and fun to look at and enjoy

Anchorman 2 makes the mistake of thinking that they had already earned the right to go crazy with jokes from the first film

and it should be enough to drive the comedy. This couldn't be more incorrect. The concept of earning your humor isn't a one-and-done thing

You don't just earn it and then receive some sort of free pass to create and do anything you want to the end of time

You have to keep earning the comedy. There's never a moment where that stops. Anchorman 2 feels less like an actual film

and more like an extremely fast-paced joke showcase, in which the job of the performers

is to try to make each other laugh instead of telling an actual story

I took that long to think of that. It's not that there's no story present within Anchorman 2

There is a very basic premise that serves as a slightly heightened version of the story presented in the original film but it doesn feel like a strong enough story spine to support the level of improvisation presented throughout the film

Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone break up, as Corningstone is promoted to lead anchor

leaving Ron Burgundy jobless and desperate. Ron is then courted by the first 24-hour news network

to anchor a late-night time slot, and then the story starts to come apart at the seams

shortly after that. Ron engages in a rivalry between the primetime anchor

Jack Lyme ignores his family, alienates his entire crew, and ends up losing his eyesight

He returns home to rehabilitate a shark and then returns to attend his son's piano recital

The entire film feels like it was written through stream of consciousness, which makes sense when you consider the fact that improv is essentially a focused approach

to maximizing the comedic value of stream of consciousness. There was so much improvisation

added into the script that the original cut clocked in at over four hours

You can't gestrin on Sperman. You can't gestrin on Sperman? Four hours is fine if you're watching Lord of the Rings

but sitting through four hours of slapstick comedy can almost be madness-inducing

Adam McKay said that there are roughly 240 alternate jokes and dialogue sequences

sitting on the cutting room floor, some of which were just too strange for audiences

and has even floated the idea of releasing alternate versions of the film with new jokes swapped in

Holy rainbow suspenders. Bob Cratchit's six-string banjo. Gandhi in a speedo. Moses on a Vespa

When you take this into consideration, it really starts to seem like the intent of making Anchorman 2

was to have the story serve as a vehicle to generate improvised comedic moments

instead of generating improvised comedic moments to support an actual story. Improvisation is a risky spice to use in your film, but when used correctly

it can lead to some truly amazing moments. The scene in Indiana Jones where Indy shoots the swordsman was improvised

The scene in Jurassic Park where Ian Malcolm distracts the T-Rex was improvised by Jeff Goldblum in rehearsals

Even the improvised moments in the first Anchorman are some of the most quotable and hilarious scenes in the history of cinematic comedy

I read somewhere that their periods attract bears The bears can smell the menstruation This serves to illustrate the fact that an actor intuition can be one of the most powerful and effective tools in the filmmaking process

However, too much improvisation can be a detriment. Making a sequel to a film shouldn't feel like

you're making a sequel to every single joke presented in the original movie. This is a trap

that a lot of comedy sequels fall into. Rather than challenge their characters in new and

interesting ways, writers often make the decision to hearken back to the original film by delivering

heightened versions of the previous entry's jokes. This requires balance that Adam McKay just doesn't apply to Anchorman 2

In Anchorman 2, McKay delivers just more of the same, but bigger

And bigger doesn't always mean better. They heighten a fight scene to the point where the ghost of Stonewall Jackson

consumes the souls of his enemies, Harrison Ford turns into a werewolf

and Brick destroys buildings with a gun from the future. The sequence is a callback to the first film, in which a variety of celebrity cameos

appear as the lead anchors of various news networks and engage Ron Burgundy and company in hand-to-hand combat

The original sequence is already extremely over the top, so an attempt to heighten it would be a pretty daunting task

Brick killed a guy. Did you throw a trident? Yeah, there were horses and a man on fire

and I killed a guy with a trident. To say that McKay doesn't pull any punches here

is a bit of an understatement. And is this scene funny? Yes. It's very hard not to laugh at how absurd this sequence is

However, it is nearly 10 minutes long and essentially adds nothing but humor to the

overall narrative. Anchorman 2 has its fair share of funny moments, but it doesn't feel like a feature-length film

Improvisation is a fun element to add into your film, and when used properly, it can

create some genuinely surprising and delightful moments for both the performers and audience alike

I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn

However, if you don't monitor the level of improv happening throughout your project, it can get out of hand quickly

In comedy, the jokes and humor are king. But if you don't support them with a proper story

then you aren't really watching a movie anymore. You're watching an improv show

And while it can be fun at times, two hours of jokes without structure starts to feel extremely exhausting

and puts the audience into a glass case of emotion