Zoolander 2 review: ★☆☆☆☆
By Tim Estiloz
It seems fitting that as the current annual film awards season winds down, the new so-called comedy Zoolander 2 manages to score top honors as being a lead contender as one of the worst films of 2016 thus far.
15-years after the original Zoolander, writer, director and co-star Ben Stiller somehow thought it was a good idea to resurrect his supremely narcissistic but intellectually deficient male model, Derek Zoolander for a second turn, apparently hoping movie audiences will foster some nostalgic affection for this haute couture version of Dumb and Dumber.
Sadly, Zoolander 2 is a bloated, convoluted, self-indulgent assault of tired, often deadly unfunny jokes and repetition; trying to mask it’s deficiencies in a glittery fashionista wrapper. The long list of needless celebrity cameos, which include Katy Perry, Keifer Sutherland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Justin Beiber and even fashion icon Anna Wintour makes one wonder what blackmail worthy dirt Stiller must have on these folks to sully their reputations to appear in this mindless waste of screen time.
In this misbegotten sequel, Zoolander and his runway model rival Hansel ( Owen Wilson ) have both become a decade-long recluse from the world following a tragic incident years earlier that caused the death of Zoolander’s wife and scarred Hansel physically and emotionally. The subsequent fallout left Zoolander estranged from his chubby and resentful son, Derek Jr. ( Cyrus Arnold ) who’s been raised in a Rome orphanage. Meanwhile Hansel is having a crisis of commitment with his pregnant significant other; which is literally the members of a kinky orgy that includes various refugees from a traveling carnival and Keifer Sutherland as Keifer Sutherland.
Yes, Zoolander 2 expects you to buy into the notion that Keifer Sutherland is literally pregnant with Hansel’s love child. That’s pretty much the level of infantile humor being served up here.
Following the apparent assassinations of several beautiful looking celebrities, including Beiber, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and more; all of whom die wearing Zoolander’s patented “Blue Steel” pout on their faces; Interpol fashion division chief Valentina ( Penelope Cruz ) enlists Zoolander and Hansel to help her unravel the mystery behind the deaths. Meanwhile, Zoolander and Hansel also become entangled with over-Botoxed, over accented European fashion empress Alexanya Atoz ( Kristen Wiig ) leading to a ridiculously complicated mess involving the search for a DaVinci Code like “Fountain Of Youth” while Zoolander and Hansel bumble their way through this confusion and their respective parental guilt issues.
By the time Zoolander’s arch villain Mugatu ( Will Ferrell ) shows up an hour into this dreck to pull the threads of this tenuous plot together; the non-stop stupidity of Stiller’s inane storyline has numbed us from caring even remotely. The finale of Zoolander 2, filled with real life fashion brand name icons Valentino, Vera Wang and Tommy Hilfinger as the members of some grotesque youth seeking blood cult, is so ridiculously overblown, one wishes there really were a fashion police to break in and end the misery being foisted on the audience.
Zoolander 2’s premise to parody the burgeoning fashion industry 15 years ago might have held some comedic relevance back then. But in today’s narcissistic age of the Kardashians and Kanye; Derek Zoolander’s preening ignorance is a retro relic that’s as passe as it’s abysmally feeble attempt at amplified recycled humor that’s most assuredly out of fashion.
