Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I often get crucified for this opinion, but I really didn’t ‘get’ the first Zoolander film. Maybe it’s the brand of humour, as I’m much more a fan of subtly and satire as opposed to slapstick and stupid, but it just did not resonate with me at all.
My proclamations of such dislike are often met with incredulous gasps and many a conversation has left me sat humming in a corner as my friends exchange quotes and recite scenes from the movie.
It gives me no great pleasure, then, to announce that the second film is even worse. No doubt fans of the first will find lots to love and I’ll receive a backhanded slap or two for decrying it, but it’s the exact same formula and even jokes we’ve seen before, but now 15 years out of date.
As that’s a pretty big gap, the opening section of the film is exploited to fill in the blanks of what’s happened since 2001, while setting up the rest of the plot that is almost as daft and nonsensical as most of the movie’s scenes.
The first film was about Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), the dashingly good-looking male model blessed with the brains of a pea who became a hero through blunt stupidity.
His successes have allowed him to get married and become a father, while setting up the Derek Zoolander Centre For Kids Who Can’t Read Good (how hilarious), which suddenly collapses and kills his wife and maims the immaculate face of his best friend, Hansel (Owen Wilson).
His son is subsequently taken away from him, forcing him to live a life of a recluse somewhere in snowy New Jersey. Now in 2016, Derek and Hansel are relics of the past, artefacts of those glorious years when fashion was fun and flamboyant.
Meanwhile, in Rome, pop stars are being mysteriously murdered (a plot device seemingly employed so that Stiller could shoehorn as many cameos as physically possible into his film), with their dying faces bearing the ‘Blue Steel’ look that Derek invented back when he was still in demand. The two models are then plucked out of retirement to uncover a dastardly plot by returning villain Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell).
All Zoolander 2 achieves is proving how unoriginal Hollywood has become. Not content with reviving franchises that should have been long-buried and trying to bottle lightning twice, they just use the exact same jokes that were (in my opinion, at least) not funny the first time.
The absolutely ridiculous and needless number of cameos (at least 25 recognisable figures litter the run time, such as Justin Bieber, Lewis Hamilton and Susan Boyle) almost makes me think that the studio knew the film was a dud and tried to throw them in by the bucket-load to make up for it and hit a sweet spot with the pop culture and celeb-obsessed crowd.
In the end, it just feels like a ‘look at me and how many high-ranking friends I have’ act of haughtiness. It’s almost as fake as the characters in the movie and the plastic façade that is the fashion industry. It’s probably the sharpest piece of satire in the film … and it’s completely unintentional.
Occasionally, there are a few nifty ideas here and there which are more watchable. Unsurprisingly, it’s the elements which are fresh for this film and not rehashed from the original. Funny, that.
For example, new character Don Atari is the best in the movie by far, and his uproarious confrontation with Mugatu feels delightfully contemptuous of all the preposterous trends that have resulted out of the hipster phenomena which have sprung up amongst the new generation.
Unfortunately, the film’s cleverer conceits are drowned by the more pedestrian antics that Stiller indulges too much in. It is ambitionless and plays it far too safe, relying predominantly on lowbrow humour and infantile innuendos.
Overall, Zoolander 2 is gratingly repetitive. Regurgitated jokes never have the same effect, no matter how many famous faces you pull in to tell them, and especially when it wasn’t funny the first time.
Sadly, Stiller (and to be fair, most of his peers too – the ‘Hollywood Comedy Club’) seems to have run out of ingenuity. Like the hipsters he’s making fun of, he’s running on sham nostalgia.
Showing at Novo Cinemas, Cineco, Seef II, Saar, Dana Cineplex
Rating: 1/5
