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Review

Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie – Movie Review

My old film teacher once told me, You put crap in, you get crap out. He believed if you didn’t shoot anything worth editing, why edit it into a film. Well Wake Up Ron Burgundy is a film almost entirely made of the stuff they did not throw into Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, whether that is a good or bad thing, is dependent on what you expect to get out of the film.

Considering the film is made up of bits not used in Anchorman, there is enough there for Wake Up Ron Burgundy to have a pretty decent, if predictable, story. The events of this movie take place after Anchorman, with Ron dealing with a group of bank robbers known as the Alarm Clock. Of course this whole storyline uses extended versions of a few scenes and actually allows for more humor from the channel 4 news team. Of course with any film, the story has to flow well. Unfortunately this is where the movie shows its weakness, as the story does not mesh well as a sequel to Anchorman. The biggest reason for this is the reuse of scenes, namely the scenes where Ron is interacting with Veronica Corningstone, as these scenes show them at odds or acting like they hardly know each other when in actuality they are supposed to have already fallen in love. Of course the narration helps to add some explanation, but toward the middle of the film it is already clear that it does not work and is pretty much ignored. Of course the scenes that were deleted that form the main story work well, as a lot of them do not feature any of the main cast. This allows for these characters to exist without really throwing off the established mythology. One could say this film’s story is meant to be a lot like an insert-able story that could have happened at any time in the life of Ron Burgundy. Without spoiling the movie, if you have seen Anchorman, then some of the plot will seem almost exactly the same, but of course most people who enjoyed the first film liked it for the jokes, and this film does not recycle many of those.

A comedy film like Anchorman has a lot of memorable jokes, so of course one should expect this film to be no different, and it isn’t. The one aspect of this film that makes it work better is the use of all of the characters, while Anchorman has some great bits, it really focused a lot on Ron Burgundy. This film, while still centering on him, allows for more bits with the rest of the cast. Whether this is a good thing, is really dependent on whether you like the other characters. Oddly enough, this film also gives a lot more background on both Brick and Champ, two characters that were funny in the first film but maybe needed a little more screen time. Then there is the Alarm Clock, their scenes sometimes felt a little strained, but some scenes, like the bank scene with Amy Pohler were pretty funny and helped show that this film could stand on its own as an entertaining and hilarious movie.

Time for a rating, if you liked Anchorman, then I would say this is probably a great movie to add to the collection, as it is probably as funny as the first, making it a solid Cool, but if you haven’t seen the first film then you wouldn’t enjoy it as much, so for those uninitiated I would give it a Meh+. Of course if you are looking for a great story, then this is definitely not it.

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About The Author

Genuwine Jon Hammer

The self proclaimed "Genuwine" Jon Hammer, currently a student studying at Digipen Institute of Technology to be a programmer. I am a huge pop culture nerd, so movies, music, tv, podcasts, and games are all important to me, in fact if I often post about such topics on my twitter.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Monday, June 29th, 2009
  • Author: Genuwine Jon Hammer
  • Filed Under: Film, Review
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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