Ali Moneib’s review published on Letterboxd:
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a 2004 comedy directed by Adam McKay. It's one of the most popular and well-loved comedies in recent times, and could very well be the most quoted movie on the internet.
In the 1970’s, Ron Burgundy was the news anchor for a local TV station in San Diego. Telecommunications were much limited then than it is now, so people had one main source of news and that was the local news station. So obviously, Ron was "kind of a big deal". He, along with his news team, were living the life until things started to change when newswoman, Veronica Corningstone, is hired. The story isn’t really what’s going to sell you on this movie. People see a movie like this to laugh. So how’s the comedy?
Well, I’ll start off by saying that I’m not really a big fan of movies in which Judd Apatow has worked on, whether as a writer, producer, or director. His work just doesn’t do it for me. So I may be the wrong target for this. But I really didn’t find this movie as funny as I thought it would be. Most of the jokes felt very forced and almost like they were trying too hard. Now I know saying that is blasphemous on the internet, but I felt the same way when I watched Superbad. And it’s not like I'm some hipster elitist who doesn't like mindless fun movies, I really do. But just not this one. Saying that, it still had some funny scenes. The showdown in the parking lot was great, the cameos were pretty funny, and it did have some funny lines. Unfortunately those funny bits were overshadowed by the ones that just fell flat. I think that because this movie is so popular, and because you see quotes from it in every other page on the internet, it may have ruined some of the jokes for me.
The movie stars Will Ferrell in the lead role of Ron Burgundy. Along with him we have Paul Rudd, David Koechner, and Steve Carell. Vince Vaughn also makes an appearance as the anchor of the rival station. This was back when Vince Vaughn was actually funny and he was great here. Is there anyone who can play a douchebag better than Vaughn? And as I said, the movie has a few cameos who I’m not going to spoil but they all were pretty good.
Anchorman is movie that I probably would've loved had I watched it in 2004. Unfortunately after all the hype, and all the spoiled jokes, it just didn’t live up to my expectations.