Zoolander (2001)

If there was a school called “The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Who Want to do Other Stuff Good Too”, I would probably go. I just love that name. And I do love this movie. It is a very clever and entertaining film, and I just love it. Like it or not, Ben Stiller has had a pretty successful decade in the 2000s. He made Dodgeball, Meet the Parents, Tropic Thunder, Meet the Fockers, Along Came Polly, Anchorman, Megamind, Madagascar and Madagascar 2, Little Fockers, Night at the Museum and Night at the Museum 2. Whether or not you like these films (some of them I certainly don’t), they are very successful. And I really do like this film. Ben Stiller is a good actor, producer, writer, and director, but when he is being tied down by a studio, he falters and can’t deliver any comedy. Ben Stiller, when he knows that there are expectations behind him, he clams up and loses his comedic ability *cough*Little Fockers*cough*. But when he gets to run free, and the studio isn’t breathing down his neck, he gives off some of the best comedy I have seen in the 21st century. And Zoolander is one of those films where he isn’t restrained, and his full comedic potential is released. The plot concerns male model Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), who just lost the ‘VH1 Male Model of the Year Award’ to Hansel (Owen Wilson), after three years of winning, and then he loses his magic. His rebound is a modeling job from designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) who plans to brainwash Zoolander to make him assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia. The plot gets thicker, but I really am not in the mood to explain it, and it really doesn’t matter. But the film is just hilarious, front-to-back. This is on the same scale, if not funnier than, Meet the Parents and Dodgeball. It is just a solid Friday-night comedy centered around the dumbest man to come along since Jim Carrey made Dumb and Dumber.
8.5/10