ZOOLANDER ---------
Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller, "Meet the Parents") has been the Male Model of the year for three year's running with his patented "Blue Steel" look. When the extreme sports, New Age Hansel (Owen Wilson, "Meet the Parents") takes his title in year four, Zoolander decides that 'there's more to life than just being really, really good looking, and I plan on finding out what it is.' Meanwhile, an evil fashion conglomerate determined to keep their pocket-gouging profits intact needs an assassin to rub out the prime minister of Malaysia in order to keep its foreign child labor pool stitching away. Hot designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell, "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back") is tasked
with luring Derek back into the fashion world and programming him to kill in "Zoolander."
Cross the colorful pop silliness of spy spoof "Austin Powers" with the dimwitted, albeit good-hearted, vanity of "Clueless'" central character and birth is given to cowriter/director Ben Stiller's "Zoolander." While not as witty as the latter, Jane Austen-inspired film, "Zoolander" has enough inspired goofiness to maintain a consistent giggle fit.
After establishing the dominance of Zoolander in the fashion world, Stiller batters his creation's self esteem. His loss of Male Model of the Year (in a year when Fabio wins the 'slashie' for model/actor) is followed by an unflattering Time Magazine cover feature by Matilda (Stiller's wife Christine Taylor, "The Brady Bunch Movie"). Then, when his three male model roommates attempt to cheer him up with a mini-road trip, they perish in a 'freak gasoline fight accident.' The now-lone inhabitant of a four-way bunk bed decides to head for home (in matching bone snakeskin suit and wardrobe bag) to work with his father (Jon Voight) and brothers in the coal mines of New Jersey, but he's rebuffed for his former, unmanly profession.
Mugatu, who's never used Zoolander in one of his campaigns before, appeals to his vanity by asking him to be the spokesmodel for his new 'Derelicte' line (inspired by the homeless). Whisked away to a hidden inner-city day spa by the Russian S&M clad Katinka (Milla Jovovich, "The Fifth Element"), Zoolander's brainwashed. Luckily, regretful Time reporter Matilda, attempting to make amends, begins to smell a rat.
Writers Stiller, John Hamburg ("Meet the Parents") and Drake Sather ("The MTV Movie Awards") hang juvenile humor (Derek's roomies communicate with a string of 'Earth to's) and spot on parodies (the personality profiles of Zoolander and Hansel at the awards ceremony) on a recycled plot they wisely realize doesn't matter. Director Stiller weaves the written silliness with visual jokes and highlights the whole affair with celebrity cameos that come at the audience every few minutes. Zoolander's brainwashing scene utilizes retro pop-art and music video imagery to its best effect while his 'walk-off' with Hansel, a split-screen, gun-slinging parody set to Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' is the film's comic highlight. Inventive production design by Robin Standefer ("The Caveman's Valentine") climaxes with Hansel's 'all things exotic and New Age' mishmash of a loft space including a 'dirt room' where Matilda's treated to a menage a trois. Costume design by David C. Robinson ("Pollock") is a mixture of the made-up outrageous (Mugatu's garbage-inspired 'Derelicte' line) with the already outrageous.
Stiller combines a 'sucking-in-cheeks' zoned-out look with exaggerated poses, while Wilson's more natural as the scooter-riding High Times cover boy. Amazingly, Taylor makes her straight-woman role work while Jovovich gets laughs from her femme fatale makeup design. Stiller's dad Jerry gets some Catskill-style yuks as Zoolander's manager Maury Ballstein. The only disappointment is the usually reliable Will Ferrell who only gets laughs from his Klaus Nomi hairstyle. Hair also gets laughs when we're introduced to Zoolander's dad, Jon Voight, and brothers (Vince Vaughn is one) who sport the same, dark brushcut as their model relative. The style shows up again on David Duchovny, an informant hand model.
B+
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