Zoolander **** (2001, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell) – Classic Movie Review 487

As unlikely rival supermodels, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson light up Zoolander (2001), a hilarious spoof on the excesses of the male-model and fashion worlds.

That funny bloke Ben Stiller directs as well as stars in this outrageously silly 2001 comedy as soppy supermodel Derek Zoolander. Defeated as Male Model of the Year by hunky Hansel (Wilson), Derek is offered a comeback show by evil fashion guru Mugatu (Will Ferrell), who plans to assassinate the Malaysian Prime Minister on his visit to New York.

The film soon finds that trying to send up the already funny excesses of the real-life fashion world isn’t easy. But Stiller – so hysterical in There’s Something About Mary and Meet the Parents – is on hilarious form. This may be a one-joke movie, but the joke is a really funny one. There aren’t many heroes called Derek, so let’s toast one of the year’s daftest comedies.

Ben Stiller finds room for a big role for his dad, Jerry Stiller, who overacts wildly as Maury Ballstein.

Also in the cast are Jon Voight, Christine Taylor, Milla Jovovich, David Duchovny, Judah Friedlander, Nathan Lee Graham, Alexander Manning, Asio Highsmith, Alexander Skarsgard, David Bowie, Donald Trump, Christian Slater, Cuba Gooding Jr, Tommy Hilfiger, Natalie Portman, Lenny Kravitz, Garry Shandling, Stephen Dorff, Sandra Bernhard and Claudia Schiffer.

Ben Stiller also co-produces with Scott Rudin and Stuart Cornfield, and co-writes with Drake Sather and John Hamburg.

The long-awaited Zoolander 2 was still in the development-hell pipeline in 2014. Ben Stiller: ‘It’s kind of coming along slowly, we have a script that we like and we’re just waiting for the studio to figure it out. But I think we all want to do it. We’re raring to go, not quite sure where the studio’s at. Hopefully it’ll come together.’

But on March 10 2015, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson appeared on the runway at Valentino’s Paris Fashion Week show and officially signalled that the sequel is a go, with reports stating that Penelope Cruz has signed on to co-star in the Justin Theroux-penned project. The Stiller-directed sequel is due to begin filming in Rome and open on February 16 2016. Justin Bieber will be joining a cast that includes Stiller, Wilson, Billy Zane and Will Ferrell.

Zoolander 2 finally appeared in 2016. After all that, it was a damp squib.

Jerry Stiller died on 11 May 2020.

RIP the hilarious comedy legend Jerry Stiller, who died on 11 May 2020, aged 92. He is fondly remembered as Maury Ballstein in Zoolander, as Carmine Vespucci in The Ritz (1976) and Wilbur Turnblad in Hairspray (1988).

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