I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but for a lot of guys out there Ron Burgundy is kind of a big deal.

Sure, plenty of girls want to be with him, but not nearly as much as the boys want to be him.

So Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues has been a long time coming.

And the results are more than a little mixed.

Picking up with everyone’s favourite anchorman and his life anchor Veronica Corningstone, we begin in New York city.

San Diego’s most beloved couple have hit the big time and are reading news in the big apple, when resident news-reading legend Mack Harken calls the pair of them into his office.

Sensing that he may be about to pass on the baton of his prime time news show, Ron Burgundy starts behaving like a giddy schoolgirl.

When Harken instead passes on Burgundy and offers New York’s flagship news slot to his wife and now mother of their child, Ron gives his co-anchor a simple choice: it’s either him or the job.

Six months later, the anchorman formerly known for his salon quality hair is drunkenly announcing seaworld’s latest dolphin act of cruelty while hitting that scotch he loves so much pretty damn hard.

So when some recruitment agent shows up with an offer to be a part of his boss’ new-fangled, 24 hour news channel, there’s only one thing Ron Burgundy has to do: get his old news reading gang back together.

Having failed to make many headlines at the cinema, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy went on to become everyone’s favourite cult comedy once released on dvd.

Obviously this was in the time before blu-ray.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues tries to recapture the comedy magic of the original, and there are almost as many laughs with this Will Ferrell shaped sequel.

There’s the familiar material we all loved and quoted from the first film; from Burgundy’s rampant and misplaced sense of self, self-styled lady’s man Bryan Fantana’s tricks of his casanova trade, Champ Kind’s latent man love of Ron and sweet Brick Tamland’s child-like innocence.

The problem comes from Ferrell and director Adam McKay’s co-written mess of a story that they’d never have been allowed to get away with in a first film.

But now Ron Burgundy and friends have become such big deals, it’s fair to say some studio execs didn’t mind indulging their narrative excesses.

And the same will probably apply to the legion of fans Anchorman has acquired, even when things get pretty ridiculous in the last half hour.

Anchorman 2’s saving grace is its cautionary message of 24 hour news, which has turned most American news outlets into abominations of the fourth estate that are simply beyond parody.

Yes Fox news, I’m looking at you.

So thank Ron Burgundy, other deities are available, that we still have some trustworthy news channels out there.

Only problem being that these same outlets are the ones that are going to point out all the obvious flaws in Anchorman 2.

Still, as a Canadian siren from the nineties once sang, isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

Jonathan Campbell