Zoolander Review
In spite of the new Zoolander movie having not that many great things said about it, I thought I would talk about the older one.
So this movie is about a male model named Derek Zoolander (played by Ben Stiller) who one day decides that there has to be more to life than looking good. He gets an offer from a fashion designer named Mugatu, to be the face of a new line of clothing that is supposed to represent poverty. This new clothing line is all a front made by Mugatu so that he can trick Derek into being brainwashed to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia when he comes to America to see the new line of clothing. Granted, it is an awfully clever and original premise for a movie. This movie was nothing even remotely groundbreaking, but it is pretty entertaining. Ben Stiller is really good in this movie, and Owen Wilson was okay. There's also that girl from Dodgeball, Christine Taylor. I wasn't impressed with much in this film. It's Ben Stiller, so expect a lot of stupid comedy, but in a way also a cleverly-stupid comedy. In a good way, like the way that Dumb and Dumber is cleverly-stupid, even though Dumb and Dumber did it better.
As for moviemaking, this movie is pretty bland. No fancy angles or camerawork, which is fair enough considering it is a comedy. The acting sufficed, and Ben Stiller's character is hilarious. What I didn't like about this movie is that some of the characters weren't all that necessary, or interesting. Christine Taylor's character wasn't that interesting, and it felt a little too similar to Dodgeball, both of which being Ben Stiller movies. Will Ferrel's character Mugatu was funny but wasn't a compelling antagonist. I would say that most every character is underdeveloped, irrelevant or uninteresting except Hansel (Owen Wilson's character) and Derek Zoolander. What this film did right are the jokes pretty much always landed, and they were ingenious. The pacing is excellent, and the movie is a light-hearted one. There is a certain silliness to this movie where you can tell that a lot of people probably had a lot of fun on set.
Since the movie came around in theaters about 2-3 weeks after 9/11, I can understand if people weren't in the mood or mindset for something this offbeat and silly. I do have to give credit to the originality of this movie for the premise. It is a pretty genius concept for a movie, for what plotline there is. It was hard to think of any specific joke that didn't land. Ben Stiller is really good at striking a balance between intelligent comedy, cleverly-stupid comedy, and tongue in cheek humor. The majority of this movie does feel like one big skit, where the plotline is only necessary for setting up jokes. In the end, this movie is a fun time, and it's very enjoyable, even if not a lot of thought was obviously put into many of the characters.
+ hysterical - Most characters dull
+ Original premise - Story not always cohesive
+ Derek Zoolander is a genius character
+ Good pacing
6.7/10
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