Zoolander
Derek Zoolander (Stiller) is the most famous male model of his generation, but his luck changes when up and coming model Hansel (Wilson) wins model of the year, causing the evil fashion guru Mugatu (Farrell) to brainwash him to assassinate the President of Malaysia. Only journalist Matilda (Taylor) suspects foul play and aims to save Derek from himself.
Derek Zoolander (Stiller) is the most famous male model of his generation, but his luck changes when up and coming model Hansel (Wilson) wins model of the year, causing the evil fashion guru Mugatu (Farrell) to brainwash him to assassinate the President of Malaysia. Only journalist Matilda (Taylor) suspects foul play and aims to save Derek from himself.
More often than not when you see a trailer for a comedy you think “are all the funny bits in the trailer?” None more so than Zoolander, a Ben Stiller film directed, co-written and starring Ben Stiller, and based on the VH1 parodies that proved so popular. So with that thought stuck in my head I sat to watch the film that is banned in Malaysia and Singapore (!) to see what all the fuss was about. One of the problems I had with this movie was Zoolander’s voice. Ok so he sounds like a voice over to a Calvin Klein advert, but aft 80 minutes it was really starting to grate, and this lead me on to another fundamental problem: Zoolander is stupid, I mean really stupid, and his inane comments and mispronunciations got rather annoying after about half an hour. This aside there are some genuinely hilarious moments, but most of them rely on slapstick and toilet humour. Don’t get me wrong, I love that kind of comedy and at times during this film I was apoplectic, but…they are all in the trailer. So what you get is effectively 5 minutes of really funny stuff…spread out over 80 minutes.
What pads out the laughs is okay, but probably best if you know something about the fashion industry, and as anyone who has seen my wardrobe will tell you – that’s not me. There are lots of in-jokes and secret handshakes going on, and a few neat satirical touches that even I got, but it alienated me somewhat from the characters. The thing that impressed me most with the film is the overall “look” of it…some great production design, costumes etc., coupled with some exquisite photography. Both Stiller and Wilson are entertaining as the two models, and the lovely Milla Jovovitch, virtually unrecognisable under heavy make-up is great as the nasty Katinka. Unfortunately they are let down by a script that fails to make up for the fact that the whole movie is based on a single in-joke which tires after half an hour, leaving you waiting for the next laugh, and hoping that the movie is short, which it is. It’s an ok movie to watch on TV if you have nothing to do, but not something you’d really want to watch twice, a terrible waste of a good cast and great visuals. If this movie was a schoolchild I’d say “has potential, but must try harder”.
If only the same effort had gone in to the script as into the DVD, we would be still laughing, as this is quite a neat DVD production. Cool animated screens with Zoolander talking inanely over the top explain the layout and encourage you to browse. Playing the film you get a bright, colourful picture which deals well with light and dark scenes, and is pretty sharp. Dolby digital 5.1 sound is never really tested, but has a few neat rear effects in the mining scene, and copes easily with the test put upon it.
The commentary features Ben Stiller and writers Drake Sather & John Hamberg. A pretty entertaining scene specific commentary, the three discuss the original script, particular changes to scenes, characters, the lot, all in all a good commentary which is often funny too.
The deleted scenes include half a dozen scenes that are pretty good, and include Ben Stiller’s commentary tracks across all of them. Most of them were taken out for pace and are right not to be in the final feature. Extended scenes have a number of longer cuts, again with commentary, or alternate versions of key scenes which drag a little. Following that there’s 5 minutes of outtakes with Stiller, Farrell and Duchovny which are pretty funny, followed by two VH1 fashion award skits. These are (I believe) the original spoof documentaries that spawned the idea of the movie. As such, they include a lot of stuff that is used in the movie, but they are pretty funny.
There’s a neat little Easter Egg which tells you how sad you are for finding Easter-Eggs, and shows you test footage of Stiller and Wilson practicing their catwalk scenes, giving away just how rubbish they were in pre-production. It runs for about 3 minutes and includes a Ben Stiller commentary.
Finally there’s an Alternative End Title sequence (2 minutes), full of highlights of the movie, which I thought was a pretty cool ending. Unfortunately you don’t find out why they went for the plain end titles, but its here in its entirety to enjoy.
So a pretty decent package of extras that are let down by the film, which reinforce the style over content feel I got from the movie, and that could be yet another in-joke that I’m afraid I just didn’t get.
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