ANCHORMAN 2 Is I'm Ron Bergundy?

ANCHORMAN 2 Review:

- I remember being skeptical going into the first Anchorman. Up until then, I was only mildly a fan of Will Ferrell, and hadn't loved the sorts of cheap-laugh fratboy antics he'd become known for in movies like Old School. But Anchorman - which teamed Ferrell with SNL writer Adam McKay - brought Ferrell back to the style of comedy that had resulted in his funniest moments on Saturday Night Live: big, weird, crazy, out-there. Anchorman was so funny because it dared to ditch frat humor for absurdist humor - lampooning 70's-era alpha-male bravado while also not being afraid to throw in randomness like talking dogs and ultra-violent gang fights between rival teams of newsmen. Anchorman won me over, and it opened up the door for further hilarious Ferrell-McKay collaborations like Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Suddenly, Anchorman - a movie that felt like Ferrell and McKay were getting away with something - became the template for more, increasingly absurdist comedies. I suspect that the success of Anchorman also opened up the door for guys like Seth Rogen and Adam Goldberg, David Wain, and others to do more over-the-top comedies at big studios, like This Is The End and Role Models. Sort of awesome, in my opinion. But funny in that Anchorman 2, a movie that its studio didn't even want to fund for many years, ended up becoming one of the most hyped and hotly-anticipated comedy sequels of all time. Weird, random humor becoming the norm? I'm okay with that.

So how is ANCHORMAN 2? It's funny - really funny. And it goes even bigger and broader than Part 1, with numerous bits that are very random and oddball and out there. The crack team of comic actors from Part 1 - Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, and Christina Applegate - are all back, and in fine form. And when you've got such a talented line-up of comedians, it's hard to go wrong. Carell, as loony weatherman Brick, gets a lot of big moments in this one, including a hilariously insane romance with an equally loony Kristin Wiig. Other notables joining the cast include Meagan Goode as Ron Bergundy's tough-customer new boss, and James Marsden as a slick rival reporter.

Interestingly, just as the first Anchorman tried to tell a story that was sort of socially relevant to its period setting (where Applegate's Veronica Corningstone caused upheaval at the local news station by being its first female anchor), so too does the sequel try to place Ron Bergundy and co. in the context of history. This time, it's 1980, and 24 hour cable news emerges as a competitor to the networks. After getting fired by his boss at the network - passed over for a promotion in favor of Veronica - a distraught Ron gets a second chance, when he's offered a shot at being a cable news anchor. Ron gets his old team back together, and they beat the odds and rack up ratings by inventing the sorts of schlock-tactic "news" coverage (car chases, for one) that is commonplace today.

Where ANCHORMAN 2 hurts itself is by trying to do too much at once. I feel like Ferrell and McKay are trying to have their cake and eat it too, by indulging in both a lot of media satire and social commentary-comedy, yet still taking extended side-trips into the wacky and absurd. We go from scenes that take not-so-subtle jabs at today's 24-hour news cycle, to scenes where Ron Burgundy nurses a wounded baby shark back to health and sings a song about it. There's interoffice rivalry with James Marsden's character, and romantic rivalry, with Veronica taking up with a new man (an on-point Greg Kinnear) following a falling-out with Ron, and Ron taking up with his new boss, Linda. The result is a long and at times rambling comedy that tries to do a LOT, without necessarily having a single through-line to tie it all together. By the time the movie ends, you start to wonder what the movie was actually *about* to begin with.

And that's not to say that it had to be about anything. But McKay and Ferrell, as mentioned, squeeze in a ton of plot. Not content to *just* be a riff on the modern era of news, this film packs everything and the kitchen sink into its two hour runtime. This means that when scenes don't elicit big laughs, they tend to really bomb, because they're often disconnected from the rest of the story. One example: when the movie plays the race card and has Ron attend an awkward dinner with Linda's African-American family, the jokes are more cringe-worthy than laugh-worthy. And the fact that the scene mostly bombs, combined with how tangential it is to the main plot, makes you wonder why it didn't get chopped in the editing room.

That said, when the jokes work, they often work big. From Carell and Wiig's oddball pairing, to a gang-fight scene that rivals the first movie's for sheer audacity and shock-value (and in terms of applause-worthy cameos), the movie gets more than enough belly laughs to make it a worthwhile watch. I'm a fan of the random stuff, so I didn't mind the film indulging in it. Honestly, I think Ferrell and McKay are funnier when they're going broad than when they try to do satire. And to that end, I have mixed feelings about, but ultimately support, the extended sequence in which Ron Bergundy goes blind, and becomes a lighthouse-dwelling hermit. On one hand, it comes so late in the movie that part of you thinks "really? they're doing this *now*?". And yet, the funniest moments of the whole film, I think, come as Ron struggles to adjust to being blind in the most hilariously misguided fashion imaginable. The whole thing comes off as an extended SNL sketch randomly thown into the middle of an Anchorman movie. And yet, it's hilarious, so it's hard to find fault. I guess you sort of wish Ferrell and McKay could just ditch narrative altogether and do a longform sketch film or something. As is, Anchorman 2 zips back and forth between its various plotlines and numerous divergent bits of randomness. So yes, there's a lot of funny packed in, but there's also a feeling that the movie is a bit overstuffed.

If you dug the first Anchorman, as I did, you can't go wrong in checking out its sequel. It's a funny flick, and I was laughing pretty consistently throughout. If there's to be a third though, I think that it'd wise to go back and re-tool the formula before things go too off the rails. I love seeing movies where it feels like people are getting away with something, but sometimes, more does not always equal better. One equation that does still very much hold up, however, is that Ferrell + McKay = funny. I'm glad that they are out there making weird $#%& like Anchorman.

My Grade: B+

ROBOT & FRANK is a Funny, Heartfelt, Surprising Trip to The Twilight Zone

ROBOT & FRANK Review:

- Like a lost episode of The Twilight Zone, Robot & Frank is a sci-fi allegory, an all-too-human story, and a profound fable all rolled into one. I absolutely loved this film. It made me think, feel, and marvel at the spectacular, Oscar-worthy central performance of Frank Langella - at his very best here.

Robot & Frank is a simple story with a lot of depth. Like the Twilight Zone episodes of old, it's not exactly subtle in its storytelling ... and yet, there are indeed many subtle layers to Frank Langella's character ... it's one of those acting jobs that's amazing to just sort of sit back and watch and take in all of the little nuances. Robot & Frank takes place in the near future, in a world that's not too hard to imagine evolving from our current era. In this future, the analog age has even more fully given way to a digital reality. Robots are starting to become commonplace in the home and workplace. In particular, a sleek model of helper-robot is starting to become a mass-market item. A sleek, space-age automaton that looks like a cartoon spaceman as designed by Apple. One of the common uses for these helper robots is to care for the elderly. They serve as a butler, aide, caretaker, and, in a strange way, companion. Suffice it to say, the aging, grizzled Frank does not want the robot that his protective son Hunter (James Marsden) gives to him. James drives two hours to see his dad every weekend, and he's becoming increasingly concerned about the old man - his memory seems to be deteriorating, and Frank seems to be losing his ability to care for his home and for himself. The twist here is that Frank is no ordinary senior citizen. He's an ex-con. In his day, he was a master thief, a skilled cat-burglar, a legendary con-artist, and a man of adventure. At first, Frank resists the robot - he doesn't want an artificial caretaker telling him to excercise, take his pills, and find new hobbies. He is firmly of the same anti-robot mindset as his daughter, Madison (Liv Tyler) - though she is so because of an overwrought conviction that robots should not be used for labor in place of real people. Soon enough though, Frank begins to warm up to the thing. He begins to enjoy its company (he does, afterall, live alone in a rather isolated house on the outskirts of town). But what really gets Frank to warm up to the robot is when a lightbulb goes off in his head - when he realizes that the robot - adept at everything from picking locks to cracking safes to hiding evidence - could be his ticket back to the big scores of his criminal heyday. And therein lies the irony of Frank - going back to a life of crime is what makes him feel rejuvinated - sharper, spryer, happier and more fulfilled than he's been in years.

The less you know about where the story goes from there, the better. All I will say is that ... when I suggest that the movie is like a Twilight Zone episode, I'm not kidding. But the movie does a remarkable job of combining big, hit-you-over-the-head emotional and story beats with a whole lot of humanistic, heartfelt emotion. What Langella does here is nothing short of phenomenal. You can't help but root for Frank, even as he engages in criminal acts. At the same time, you can't help but feel sorry for the guy - especially as we see how his memory continues to evaporate, as Alzheimer's and/or dementia sets in. Anyone who has witnessed a family member go through this will feel twinges of sadness and heartbreak, as Langella brilliantly portrays his character's off-and-on symptoms, his self-denial, his frustration with his own loss of sharpness. An easy way to tell this story would be to have Langella play a badass who becomes unstoppable with the help of his new robot companion. But the movie takes a much more complex route to telling its story, giving Frank moments of triumph and tragedy - moments where he seems like the smartest guy in the room, and moments where he seems pathetic and ineffectual - an old man overreaching. But my god, to think that Langella puts on this performance for the ages, even as much of his screentime is spent acting with a robot (or a guy in a robot suit, I guess) - it's incredible. The way that director Jake Schreier crafts the relationship between Robot and Frank ... the way he makes us really care for them as a pair, despite one being a four-foot-tall machine ... again, it's pretty amazing. And I also give a lot of credit to the script by Christopher D. Ford. It's a fantastic piece of work. Funny, moving, and poignant. The tone here is a very delicate thing. Certain characters are deliberately more over-the-top and cartoonish (Tyler as the whiny, semi-oblivious Madison, Jeremy Strong as a slimeball who becomes Frank's mark). But Ford's script keeps things emotionally grounded, despite the movie's more fantastical and comedic elements.

This is Langella's show, but the cast as a whole is quite good. I'll give special mention to two people. One is Susan Sarandon as Jennifer, the librarian of what seems to be the last real library in the world, which happens to be Frank's favorite place (partly for the books, partly because he enjoys flirting with Jennifer). Sarandon is amazing in this role, especially as certain information about her character comes to light. And then there's Peter Sarsgaard, who voices Frank's robot. Sarsgaard is doing one of those classic HAL-style robot voices, but what's impressive is how he puts little hints of something more beneath the surface. The fact that we come to care for the robot - just as Frank does - is a credit to the script, to Sarsgaard, and to the film as a whole.

I found myself very surprised by this film. I didn't anticipate where it was going with its plot and character development. I didn't anticipate the brilliant way in which Frank and his robot's destinies would end up becoming comingled. I didn't anticipate that this movie would have the layers of social commentary and sci-fi allegory that it did. And man ... I did not anticipate the emotional gut-punch of the film's final act. Perhaps some may find the film hamfisted. But I was so invested in its characters, so won over by the movie's combo of humor and heart, that I couldn't help but be bowled over by its ultimate revelations. It left me a bit shaken, to be honest. Happy, sad, floored by Langella's performance ... and feeling like I had just seen one hell of a movie.

Go see ROBOT & FRANK. It's a fantastic movie, and one of the best things I've seen so far this year.

My Grade: A-