Zoolander Review
by Susan Granger (ssg722 AT aol DOT com)October 9th, 2001
Susan Granger's review of "ZOOLANDER" (Paramount Pictures)
If you love satire, this is for you. Claiming he based his moronic character on a "cross between Jason Priestly and Luke Perry," Director/writer/actor Ben Stiller has created vacuous, good-looking Derek Zoolander, the world's best-known male model. He's the three-time winner of the VH1 Male Model of the Year Award but when he loses to Hansel, a Fabio-like newcomer played by Owen Wilson, he's so depressed that he's ripe to be recruited by the evil Mugatu (Will Ferrell) and brainwashed at a Day Spa to become a political assassin. It seems the Prime Minister of Malaysia has become a threat to a cabal of fashion industry tycoons because he's vowed to pay his country's garment workers a decent wage - and it's Stiller's sinister contention that the greatest political assassins throughout recent history have been male models. Superbly portrayed by Stiller, Derek Zoolander is "a beautiful, self-absorbed simpleton - an empty vessel," whose snarling signature "look" is dubbed Blue Steel. But Owen Wilson steals scenes as the extreme-sports devotee, particularly during the "walk-off" as the rival male mannequins duel on the runway. Collaborating with co-writers Drake Sather and John Hamburg, Ben Stiller comes up with a winner, casting members of his own family in pivotal roles. Stiller's real-life father Jerry plays his agent; his real-life mother, Anne Meara, plays a heckler; and his real-life wife, Christine Taylor ("The Brady Bunch Movie"), plays a snoopy reporter. Jon Voight is his coal-miner father; Milla Jovovich is a villainous vamp, and David Duchovny has a conspiracy secret - while David Bowie, Natalie Portman, Christian Slater, Lukas Haas, Cuba Gooding Jr. and others do cameos. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Zoolander" is a silly, stupid 8. It's timely, hilarious, good fun.
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