Ben Stiller (2016)
Ben Stiller can’t be accused of indecently hasty cashing-in on the success of Derek Zoolander: fourteen years have passed since the original Zoolander. On the other hand, the appearance of this sequel, after such a long interval, makes you wonder if Stiller has run out of better things to do. Zoolander 2, after a promising beginning, turns out to be an irritating experience – and a rather saddening one. The first film ended with the realisation of the hero’s dream to open the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good (etc). Two days after its opening, the Center collapsed – the building had been constructed from the same materials as the architect’s model. Derek’s partner, Matilda, was killed in the accident. His catwalk-rival-turned-best-friend Hansel McDonald was injured. After losing custody of Derek Jr, his and Matilda’s son, Derek gave up modelling and retired from public life. He now lives ‘as a hermit crab’, under an assumed name (Eric Toolander), in ‘extreme northern’ New Jersey. Derek is invited by Alexanya Atoz, the formidable head of a big fashion house, to return to the limelight. He agrees, encouraged by being told that a ‘regular lifestyle’ will help him get his son back. Hansel, who now divides his time between meditation and orgy in ‘the uncharted Malibu territories’, receives the same invitation to the House of Atoz show. At the same time, Valentina Valencia of Fashion Interpol thinks Derek and Hansel can help her track down a serial killer of international pop stars, all of whom have died with Derek Zoolander’s trademark ‘Blue Steel’ expression on their face. I laughed plenty in the early stages of Zoolander 2. The spoof television news reports are well done (and a neat way of summarising events since 2001). It’s great to see Stiller’s Derek and Owen Wilson’s Hansel again. The injuries he suffered when the Derek Zoolander Center fell down have forced Hansel to wear a mask on one side of his face. It’s obvious his disfigurement will be invisibly slight – that makes it all the funnier when Hansel dares to remove the mask.
So what goes wrong? The screenplay – by Stiller, John Hamburg, Nicholas Stoller and Justin Theroux – dribbles along as a series of variable sketches then lurches into a protracted climax that seems concerned with being spectacular rather than comic. (A switch to this order of priorities was also a weakness of Stiller’s previous movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.) As the film goes on, Derek and Hansel don’t dominate proceedings the way they did in the first Zoolander. The action seems cluttered with other characters, few of whom are funny. Will Ferrell as the villain Jacobim Mugatu seems more in evidence but (as a result?) is less amusing than he was in Zoolander. There are compensations: Kirsten Wiig is entertaining as Alexanya Atoz – the disguised identity of Mugatu’s henchwoman Katinka Ingabogovinanana (Milla Jovovich – as last time); Cyrus Arnold does well enough as Derek Jr, whose obesity so appals his father. But other significant new characters, like the grunge designer Don Atari (Kyle Mooney), are one-note. Penélope Cruz is game as Valentina Valencia but Stiller seems to think the casting coup is enough in itself. As an androgynous model called All, Benedict Cumberbatch is a different problem. Derek’s deep confusion about All’s gender identity is enjoyable (and I liked the joke that All has recently wed her/himself in ‘the world’s first mono-marriage’) but Cumberbatch gives off a sense of doing us a favour by taking part in the film.
This links to what’s most disappointing about Zoolander 2. It’s no surprise that half the cast are well-known people as themselves. This was just as true of the first Zoolander (in which the walk-ons included Donald Trump) but the celebrity-fest feels more pervasive now. You’re aware of it even before the film starts if you’ve seen the Derek Zoolander-photographed-by-Mario-Testino commercial on cinema ads in recent weeks. The prologue to the film, featuring Justin Bieber as the latest pop-idol assassinee, taking a ‘Blue Steel’-look selfie before he expires, is OK. Experienced actors supposedly playing themselves are tolerable in proportion to how well they can act and how limited their screen time is: this means that Kiefer Sutherland and Billy Zane fare better than Sting. But it’s the involvement of star designers et al that’s really grating. Some of them are given lines to speak: they deliver them badly and we’re meant to think this proves they’re good sports. Ben Stiller showed good satirical judgment in Zoolander. The movie wasn’t a politically earnest attack on the mores of international fashion but it managed to be reasonably incisive while retaining a light touch and a good spirit. It stopped short of reassuring its target. Fourteen years on, Stiller’s approach is worse than cosy and he goes further than telling the likes of Tommy Hilfiger, Marc Jacobs and Anna Wintour that he’s only kidding. He seems almost to need their blessing.
21 February 2016
