ANCHORMAN 2 vs. ANCHORMAN 2

March 2, 2014 6:32 PM

For those who have seen both the PG-13 version of ANCHORMAN 2 as well as the R-rated version: I'm not usually a big Will Ferrell fan, and haven't seen either the original ANCHORMAN or the original ANCHORMAN 2, but I went to the new 2.5 hour ANCHORMAN 2 attracted to the concept of a movie that had had a total joke implant. I ended up enjoying the very high joke density, surreal non sequiturs and strange tangents of this "super-size" version of ANCHORMAN 2 released this week. Does the joke density of the standard PG-13 ANCHORMAN 2 come close to the 2.5 hour version, or is the pace closer to a conventional modern film comedy?

Boy, does the word ANCHORMAN look strange when you stare at it for a few minutes.

posted by I EAT TAPAS to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

is the pace closer to a conventional modern film comedy?

I haven't seen the R-rated version, but the PG-13 version was paced a bit weirdly, I thought, mainly because it felt bloated. 90 minutes is pretty standard for a modern film comedy, yet it went for over 2 hours, and it did that aggravating (to me) thing where it felt like it had 3 or 4 endings that the filmmakers couldn't decide on, so they just went with all of them. (To give an idea of how this played out, my 12-year-old nephew turned to me somewhere in the last 20 minutes and whispered, "it's really funny, but why isn't it over yet?")
posted by scody at 10:01 PM on March 2, 2014

I only saw the PG-13 version but my biggest complaint was the high joke density in the first half, which then tapered off to something with a bit of breathing room in the second.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:33 AM on March 3, 2014

This article/blog says:

This is the easiest way to describe the new version of “Anchorman 2,” an oversized comedy so shapeless and bizarre that it borders on being experimental. Gone is any sense of pacing or propriety; in its place is sheer, go-for-broke goofiness.

...most of the sequences are longer, more doodle-like versions of the tighter things that ran in the theatrical cut.... Most of the time this feels like a collection of deleted scenes, of stuff that you were never meant to see—especially on a giant screen with digital sound, surrounded by strangers (most of whom, in our screening, were more befuddled than entertained).

I think it went above-and-beyond what could have been pitched in the first run of the movie, and might even be more loping in pace than the original version.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:44 AM on March 3, 2014