In the ’90s there was only one name in fashion. That name was Derek Zoolander and he was the world’s most ridiculously good looking male model.
Fifteen years later and after several tragedies in his life, including child services taking away his son Derek Jnr away Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is living as a “hermit crab” in the wilderness, his hair having grown long and wild.
Drawn back into the modelling world by a string of celebrity murders where each victim has died with the famous “Blue Steel” look on their faces, Billy Zane is enlisted to bring Derek and Hansel back to assist in the investigation led by the beautiful Valentina (Penelope Cruz), a former swimsuit model.
Of course the evil Mugato (Will Ferrell) is behind it all and has planned it all from his maximum security prison cell with the assistance of Russian fashion designer Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig) to trick Derek and steal the blood of Derek’s young son Derek Jnr. to attain eternal youth. Tragically for him Zoolander’s son is both unattractive and overweight, and issue that Derek must come to grips with whilst trying to discover who he is all the while thwarting Mugato’s evil plans of world domination.
Bringing in a slew of cameo roles such as Katie Perry, Justin Bieber, Kate Moss, Sting, Anna Wintour, Tommy Hilfiger, Valentino, Alexander Wang, Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang just to name a few. The movie generally sticks to the original satirical format and does reuse a lot of the same jokes and references. Fans of the original will love that it does not waiver from the format. It’s does score some new laughs with by satirising the current Hipster culture and millennial’s need to seem disinterested. Benedict Cumberbatch makes a rather amusing appearance as androgynous model All highlighting the ridiculousness of the fashion world and is almost unrecognisable, yet quite good.
There has been quite an amount of criticism for the film of late and perhaps this late 90s style satire is not for everyone, especially if it is not something that a viewer has been exposed to and is not aware of. Fans of the original will love the trip down memory lane with the addition of a few new zany characters.
7/10
Reviewer: Amanda Starkey