Zoolander 2

Dir: Ben Stiller

2016

*

I wasn't a huge fan of the first Zoolander made back in 2001, it has always been overrated and a sequel was never warranted nor deserved. The joke is exactly the same as in the first film, although now there is a new type of male model, one that is a far cry from what Zoolander and friends represented. This is where the idea could have excelled, instead, it wasted every opportunity given and kind of made it worse the more it seemed to acknowledge it. Once more, they attach a nonsensical plot to a one joke idea and the laughter flows exactly the same way that bricks don't. Each and every joke misses the mark so spectacularly, you wonder whether the producers are in fact Max Bialystock and Leopold Bloom, again, in the absence of any real humour the film is instead, littered with an array of cameos, one or two returning from the first film and most being from the world of fashion and so up to the eye balls you wonder if they actually know where they are and what they are doing anyway (and before anyone accuses me of unfair stereotyping, ahem, this is Zoolander we are talking about). They kill off character that might not want to return or who might get in the way fair quickly and we find Zoolander has been living as a hermit (crab, ha ha ha) in the woods since 2001. Billy Zane, for some reason, persuades him to come back to the world of fashion and perform at one of the biggest events of the calendar for a big comeback. His friend Hansel (Owen Wilson) also agrees after being persuaded to leave his orgy of lovers that include a fat man, a small man, a Donkey and Kiefer Sutherland. It's really not funny. There is one seen that involves Hansel's orgy of lovers begging him to come back to them after each member, including the males members, proclaim they are pregnant by holding up all blue pregnancy test kits. Sutherland then proclaims that he lost his, due to doing his own stunts. It is unfunny on so many different levels, indeed, the film finds new levels of unfunnyness. Penélope Cruz returned to English language film in 2016 after a good few years away to do this and Grimsby. I feel she is being taken advantage of and should brush up on her English. The worst cameo in my opinion has to be Neil deGrasse Tyson, who proves that maybe he isn't as clever as we all thought he was. I found no redeeming features whatsoever, I held no emotion to the first film but I still felt sad after watching this awful excuse for a film. So many good careers damaged in such a careless manner, while The Secret World of Walter Mitty wasn't perfect, I'm not sure how you go from that to Zoolander 2 in just three years? An amazing sequel, for all the wrong reasons, and probably the worst mainstream film of 2016.