Even though Will Ferrell has obvious comedic ability, the previews for this film looked horribly dull. In fact, given a busy week, I'd pulled the plug on this screening. But since my web manager wanted to see it -- we went. Surprise surprise, the movie outplays its trailer.

The opening credits echo the dull promise of stupid attempts at funny. And in fact, the picture does indulge five or ten minutes in impotent silly failures. But, from there the ball starts to roll, picking up big well-deserved laughs in between ever decreasing non-funny moments.

My web manager says, "It's as if they came up with a bunch of ideas and decided to try them all on screen." Some miss, but some hit, and others hit really hard. The "Let's just be friends scene" with Ferrell and Applegate had me laughing so hard, tears were streaming from the sides of my eyes.

Often times, films so silly have a hard time finding a way to end strong (SNL-disease). But "Anchorman" takes the challenge and handles it quite well. Though not consistently funny, the unfunny moments aren't winceable and the film does have a good message and climaxes well.

Director McKay says, "We always did multiple takes, including one as written, so in the end, we had six choices for almost every scene in the editing room."

(BTW: The Daily Show's Steve Carell wins the funniest person in the film award!)