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Review: Zoolander
In the theater where I saw this movie, the audience was laughing throughout. It's not entirely clear how much of this was the quality of the movie, how much that people obviously needed to laugh.
The premise is great. An evil band of international fashion designers want to kill the prime minister of Malaysia after he announces he's raising the minimum wage of sweatshop workers who make designer clothes for Americans. Apparel prices will skyrocket. They threaten top designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) with destruction if he doesn't find some vapid, gullible male model to do the deed at the annual fashion show, which the prime minister plans to attend.
"Fabio?" suggests one of the villains? "Too smart," is the decision. The obvious choice for Mugatu is famous, shallow, supermodel Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), the four-time Male Model of the Year winner, soon to be embittered and unseated by arch-rival Hansel, played brilliantly by Owen Wilson. Female supermodels have long been the target of satirists, but this is the most head-on assault yet on the men.
Zoolander is likeable, stupid, self-absorbed, and manipulable. He gets absolutely nothing about the world beyond the fact that he is "wonderfully, incredibly good-looking." He has his verbal mannerisms. He's about to get an education in how the world really works. He and Hansel vie for top male model spot, including a hilarious "walk-off" on a basement runway to decide who's on top. Neither has ever turned on a computer.
Zoolander comes from a character Stiller helped create for a sketch he did on the l996 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards. If any event or industry is ripe for vicious parody, it's this one. Stiller is merciless. There's a terrific scene up front involving Stiller's gorgeous but bubble-headed roommates playing at a gas station in the style of stupid TV ads. They get their just desserts here, though the movie is as good-natured as it is biting.
Derek's agent, Maury Ballstein, is played by Jerry Stiller, Ben's dad, who is great as the crude, pompadoured head of the world's biggest modeling agency.
There are targets, spoofs and cultural references galore in Zoolander, including a play on The Manchurian Candidate spot-on blasts at the way the media worships the glam/celebrity culture, and the way in which pop culture can sometimes patronize the people who worship it. David Duchovny does an uncredited walk-on as a conspiratorial ex-model whose face is never shown, but whose hand -- used in cosmetic ads -- is instantly recognizable to Zoolander from catalogs.
American culture, one of the most powerful forces on the planet, is the big target here, especially its consuming valuelessness. Stiller grasps the cultural irony for many of us. As much as we love pop culture, we also recognize that it is becoming sillier, greedier and less honest and creative by the day. It diminishes us, he suggests, as well as the people who create it. Stiller sees popular culture as corrupt and infanticizing, celebrating trendiness above all. In worshipping the empty and the vapid, he seems to be saying, we can't help but become more empty and vapid ourselves. He's got a point.
This movie is wonderfully weird and funny. Ferrell's over-the-top Mogatu is great, as are the Finnish dwarfs and freakazoid orgy. The movie has a score of cameo appearances from fashion world muck-a-mucks, models and celebrities, but the modeling culture is only a stand-in for the celebrity machine that has engulfed publishing, music, TV, film and the arts.
This is a scathingly wonderful movie, as amusing as it is on target.
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...the computer-altered New York City skyline (the Twin Towers are gone -- replaced by odd-looking new skyscrapers in several shots looking South...
Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong? I mean, obviously the sight of the WTC in these movies may be upsetting to some people, but in my opinion, wiping them out of movies and tv shows like they never even existed is extremely disrespectful to the memories of those who lost their lives in the disaster.
Because something is funny, not because they are wanting to escape social trends. You would love to believe that everyone is laughing for the same reason but that's just not how it is, sorry. People don't all think exactly alike just because you can catagorize them or sterotype them.
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I find that digitalling removing WTC images from movies (past and present) disturbing. It is like we are trying to erase the fact they ever existed, which is wrong. I know seeing the WTC towers will be disturbing but for 30 years they were a distinct part of Americana. What are we going to do, cut pictures of them out of magazines and text books? Pull the remake of King Kong from the shelves?
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A lot of us need some escapism these days, but I don't think that the best place to be finding it is in a movie that pokes fun at muslims and considers their one of their contries (Malaysia) inconsequential.
Ebert's point that I liked the best was that, "If the Malaysians made a comedy about the assassination of the president of the United States because of his opposition to slavery, it would seem approximately as funny to us as "Zoolander" would seem to them."
Comedies like this add to the dislike of America that was exploited by a few crazy lunatics to lead to the Sep. 11 tragedy; how sad is it to see that the first big comedy to come out of the States after those events just pours salt on the wounds of the have-not countries of the world; especially since Malaysia has tried very hard to improve its possition in the world (witness the Petronas towers and the F1 grand prix).
In light of these concerns I think that those who are sensitive to the pain that certain American attitudes can cause to the people of other nations would do well to avoid this film.
I hate to break this to you, but the last thing this movie was was a commentary on fashion or pop culture. Its such a funny yet completely ridiculous take on the fashion industry that if you saw some kind of message in there then you've got bigger things to worry about. There's no jabs at real designers or at people who buy from them just surreal characters and situations designed to deliver three gags per minute.
Saying this movie has social value is like saying dumb and dumber put the rich elite in their place. Its typical Stiller and Wil Ferrel comedy turned up to 11. Some of the gags don't work, but this kept me laughing quite a bit.
Not to mention its got Milla Jovovich playing a very sexy fashion henchwoman. Natalie Portman makes a cameo too, in fact every celebrity in the known universe makes a cameo.
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Because it's disturbing to some people?
Some people have mentioned before that it dishonors the memory of the building, and the fine people that were in it, and i totally agree.
So some people will be offended, what happens if those people watch older movies on video that prominently show the WTC Towers? is Hollywood going to grab all the films off the shelf, and edit them out of there?
Personally I'm offended by the fact that they were edited out. It's a great piece of our modern history, and Hollywood is afraid of having anything to do with it.
...if they digitally removed Will Ferrell. I hate him.
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We don't erase images of our fallen war heros. We don't erase images of our assassinated presidents. Why change history now? When they filmed the movie, they were standing. Now they're not. So what? I'll tell you a litle story... My favorite pizza joint is Nat's New York Pizzeria (I'm not in New York, but these guys claim to do an authentic NY style pizza). So I'm sitting there a few days ago, chowing down on a couple of thin slabs of za. And I turn to my left and nearly choke in awe to see a huuuge photo of the Twin Towers framed on the wall. It's about 6 feet by 4 feet and includes the Brooklyn Bridge in the forground for added context. Anyways, beautiful picture and it's been there forever (I asked). I guess I never noticed it. But I'm glad I did now and I'm glad they didn't erase their history. (I'm also glad to see that they're not playing it up at all to take advantage of it.)