Zoolander 2

15 years after the first one, a movie that wasn’t all that great to begin with, Ben Stiller returns to the land of male model mockery with what is easily the worst film he’s ever been a part of. Derek Zoolander (Stiller) is living a hermit crab’s life in remote New Jersey, mourning the loss of his wife (Christine Taylor) after the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too collapsed and crushed her to death. When Hansel (Owen Wilson) urges him to find his long lost son, they wind up in Rome battling the evil fashion guy, Mugatu (Will Ferrell). The first half hour of the movie is actually less than terrible. Benedict Cumberbatch shows up as a hauntingly androgynous model called All who has married himself, and Derek’s comeback when somebody calls him a narcissist is the best line in the movie. So, OK, I laughed twice. There are too many cameos to count, many of them fashion icons I could care less about. When a big moment in your movie hinges upon the dramatic talents of Tommy Hilfiger, you’ve got yourself a problem. Did I mention that Kristen Wiig is in the movie, too? No, I didn’t. That’s because her bizarre character is something that begs to be forgotten. Stiller got lazy and perhaps a little distracted with Zoolander 2. Time to reboot. Hopefully, he’ll consider a stint on some Netflix comedy series. (He would’ve made a great Wet Hot American Summer camp counselor, right?) He needs to get his edge back after this tremendous miscue.