I have a load of DVD reviews of films I’ve seen recently but they’re all sitting in draft at the moment so bear with me. Some of them I’ve seen recently, some not so recently. I don’t care. It’s Friday, Wales are going to win tomorrow and the sun is out and boiling my brain.

dir. Adam McKay
wri. Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
str. Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate

By Odin’s beard I have no idea whether this film was funny or not. “Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy” is a very, very silly film and, unusually for contemporary american comedy, is neither gross-out humour or wacky slapstick. Instead it’s just very, very silly. Will Ferrell was inspired by a documentary about the first female news anchor and in particular one of her male associates who was a self confessed chauvinist back when the news room was male dominated. And so this film, set in the seventies, is the story of a self obsessed, ratings topping anchorman, Ron Burgundy (Ferrell), and what happens when a young ambitious female reported (Christina Applegate) joins the team.

There was a lot in this film that made me laugh. Jack Black’s biker, the cameo laden, the news team streetfight, “jazz flute”, the random (and obviously improvised) dialogue and some of the general silliness made me smirk. But I can’t help feeling they missed a trick here. There’s no real character development or character arc (not that you’d necessarily expect there to be), no real conflict and no real substance. Although I wasn’t expecting much, there were times when I felt that they could have afforded to take more of a swipe at the news industry. But this is no “The Day Today” and certainly not “Drop the Dead Donkey”. Either one of those fantastic TV shows could have been made into a film and had a similar story to Anchorman but I’m sure they would have been more cutting, more subtle and, ultimately, far, far funnier than this was.

Anchorman, however, is harmless. It’s lightweight and amusing and consistently silly but is by no means a satire or, for that matter, very subtle. It doesn’t feel very ninspired and, essentially, like one long SNL sketch. Still, I did laugh so I can’t ask much more than that.