anchorman - the legend of ron burgundy

I have to confess I wasn't expecting to enjoy Anchorman.

I'm not sure why, exactly, I just wasn't sure it would be my cup of tea.  However, actually I found it rather funny.

It's basically a silly movie.  That's not meant to be any sort of insult, it's just the type of comedy it is.  In fact, actually, it felt very similar to the type of humour you get in Python or, in fact probably more the old Steve Martin films (The Jerk or the Man with Two Brains).  There's a lot of being silly.

A very good example of this is the relationship between the various news crews, which comes to a head with a gang-rumble style fight where they all pile into each other with knives and chains.  As I say - silly, but in a good way.

There was one aspect of the film I wasn't entirely keen on, though - the animals.  Burgundy has a dog (Baxter) and I think they went a bit over the top with the idea that the dog is cleverer than him.  I dunno, that element of it just didn't really work for me.  Also there's a scene towards the end involving lots of bears and it again it didn't really do anything for me.

Comedy is about as subjective as things get, so I wouldn't really say these parts were bad, I just didn't really find them all that funny.  On the other hand the voice over, which I believe uses a famous American newsreader (this is one of the difficulties I was expecting - I'm sure there were probably lots of references in the film, but I don't have the knowledge to have spotted them, but in the end it didn't really seem to matter) was very funny - it was pitched just right.

I watched the Blu Ray version and there were actually two versions on there - the theatrical version and an "uncut" version.  There didn't seem to be a massive amount of difference, just a few jokes that were a bit grosser or involved foul language.  However, the extras did include a huge set of extended and alternate scenes - there appear to have been several different endings.

The Blu Ray also had commentaries for both versions (they sort of overlap - it's a bit weird) and I have to confess I didn't really like these.  I couldn't work out if they were pre-scripted or improvised (I think probably a bit of both - improvised, but with "then this happens" elements) but I found they kinda went on a bit with the themes.  It's a bit like when they improve shows they do loads of stuff (alternative versions in particular) and then filter down in the edit, well this didn't have any edit so in parts they seemed to bang on and on, thrashing the same basic gag into the ground.

But then commentaries are extra, so it didn't impact on my enjoyment of the film itself.