Dear Will Ferrell

If I was really a big fan of yours, I would find your career maddening.  As it is, I find that if you are starring in a movie, there's about a one in four chance that I will find it even slightly entertaining.  I'm not sure if you are just making bad choices, or if your compass on what constitutes a good comedy has been skewed so far off by all the ass kissing you received ten years ago that you just don't have a clue.  What I do know is that you owe everyone an apology for the idiocy that is Anchorman II.  I mean everyone, even the people that didn't see it, because there has been no getting away from it.

That should have been the first clue for everyone that there was going to be a major problem with this movie.  For nine years, everyone pined away, hoping that you would make a real sequel to Anchorman.  I say "real" because don't even try to tell me that Ricky Bobby wasn't a sequel with a different character that acts mostly the same.  You had nine whole years to get this right, but you kept saying that you didn't want to make a sequel.  Then, all of the sudden, you came on Late Night TV in character and announced you would do it.  In a whirlwind of odd appearances and weird commercials, America was inundated with your character and the weird sense of humor you were taking to it.  There was no getting away from Ron Burgundy.

I did not make plans to see this movie.  I enjoyed the first one, and even saw it in theaters.  The problem with it, the same problem I had with Austin Powers and Borat, was that every jaggoff that didn't have a sense of humor of their own imitated the character until all joy had been wrung dry from it.  Alas, the Monday before Christmas was rainy and awful out, and with little else to do on my day off, I agreed to catch a matinee with my sister.  There were several others in the theater, even for a Monday matinee, since many people had taken the week off for the holiday, apparently.  The only reason I knew there were other people was because I walked in while the lights were on.  For the next two hours, there would be no indication of life in that theater, except for when someone walked out before the movie ended.

Maybe you thought you'd be congratulated or idolized for making a comedy with barely any jokes.  You probably fancy yourself the new Andy Kaufman.  You both seem to share the same contempt for your audience.   To have a two hour comedy that isn't the Blues Brothers is hatred enough.  To have at least a half hour of that movie include a side plot at a lighthouse with a very unfunny song to a shark, that does nothing for the supposed plot, that might just be a hate crime. 

I think the main problem I've had with you through the years is that you have two distinct "modes" for your comedy.  You have the innocent man child, prone to fits of rage, as we see in Step Brothers and Elf.  This is, in my opinion, the only time you are actually funny.  You set up jokes, then knock them out, and you are aware that there are such things as escalation for jokes.  The other mode you get is your "Robert Goulet" mode.  Ron Burgundy is just a modified version of the awful Robert Goulet sketches you did on SNL.  They weren't funny then, and they are much less funny now that you've beaten them to death.  It's just pompousness and yelling.  I can get that from Paula Deen, I don't need it from you.

Worst of all, in all of the interviews you give that aren't in character, you seem like a humble, nice guy.  I can't rectify how you can be so funny in some things, and so god awful in others.  You're the man that created Bill Brasky.  You could have retired on that alone.  Instead, you've just gotten older and weirder, like that neighbor guy that sits on his porch and cries all day long.