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Charge your micro-mini cell phones and whip up some orange mocha Frappuccino, 'cuz
Zoolander is on the runway, and you're gonna laugh your booty off! Based on a sketch created by writer-director Ben Stiller and cowriter Drake Sather for the 1996 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards,
Zoolander is a delirious send-up of New York's fashion scene as epitomized by male model Derek Zoolander (Stiller), a dimwitted preener who's oblivious to a
Manchurian Candidate-like plot to turn him into a brainwashed assassin. Tipped off by a reporter (Christina Taylor), Zoolander teams with rival model Hansel (Owen Wilson) to foil the poodle-haired fashion designer (Will Ferrell) who's behind the nefarious scheme. The goofy plot's only half the fun; with roles for Stiller's parents (Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara), dozens of celebrity cameos, endlessly quotable dialogue, and improvisational energy to spare,
Zoolander is very smart about being very stupid, easily matching the
Austin Powers franchise for inspired comedic lunacy.
--Jeff Shannon
From The New Yorker
Ben Stiller's comedy (he wrote, directed, and stars) is at best intermittently funny. He plays an empty-headed male model, and Owen Wilson is his stoned surf-boy rival. In their scenes together they generate a goofy comic energy, like the two most demented kids on the playground. Otherwise, the jokes are reheated (let this be the end of latte humor) and the scenes padded and overlong. The big joke-that fashion designers have formed a secret society to protect their sweatshop labor sources-seems severely misguided. Shots of the New York skyline were edited at the last minute; a better idea would have been to nix the cavalier references to slavery. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker