Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) - Pretty good (most of the time)

I have a weird relationship with this film.  Or at least it occupies a rare space in my brain reserved for a select number of films which I can't work out whether I like or hate.  Most people saw it before me and raved about how good it was.  So, when I sat down to watch it, I was obviously expecting something absolutely amazing.  I ended up not liking it at all.  A good few years later I watched it for a second time and it was like watching a film I'd never seen before.  I was cracking up at the silly jokes every few seconds and recognised it for the 'classic' that everyone has always said it was.  Now, a few years later still, I've watched it again and am left with a mixture of my two previous views.

It's about a news team in San Diego during the seventies.  Will Ferrell revels in playing the titular character to the extreme and it's full of very low-brow, silly humour and over the top gags.  But his time as 'top dog' at the station is threatened by the arrival of a woman who may just be able to read the headlines even better than him.

Maybe this film needs time to grow on some people (like me!) as on this third viewing I was actually contemplating turning it off, but it was only the confusion surrounding how much I liked it the second time around that made me stick with it.  I don't know whether it's a 'film of two halves,' but I really didn't laugh much for the first forty-five minutes (and it's only a tight ninety minutes runtime all together), but the second half seemed to pick up the pace.  I found myself enjoying it more and more and was glad I stuck with it.

It's certainly not a 'cerebral' film - the gags, as I say, are the lowest you can get and I think you need to get your mind in the right gear before you can fully get whatever enjoyment you're going to get out of it.  I guess I may never see it as the 'classic' that so many do, but it's silly, harmless fun in itself.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that