Charge your micro-mini cell phones and whip up some orange mocha Frappuccino, 'cuz Zoolander is on the runway, and you're gonna laugh your booty off! Based on a sketch created by writer-director Ben Stiller and cowriter Dr... more »ake Sather for the 1996 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards, Zoolander is a delirious send-up of New York's fashion scene as epitomized by male model Derek Zoolander (Stiller), a dimwitted preener who's oblivious to a Manchurian Candidate-like plot to turn him into a brainwashed assassin. Tipped off by a reporter (Christina Taylor), Zoolander teams with rival model Hansel (Owen Wilson) to foil the poodle-haired fashion designer (Will Ferrell) who's behind the nefarious scheme. The goofy plot's only half the fun; with roles for Stiller's parents (Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara), dozens of celebrity cameos, endlessly quotable dialogue, and improvisational energy to spare, Zoolander is very smart about being very stupid, easily matching the Austin Powers franchise for inspired comedic lunacy. --Jeff Shannon« less
MAURICE V. from WOODSTOCK, GA Reviewed on 9/1/2010...
Biggest bunch of junk I have seen in a long time, what a waste of Ben Stiller talent and other top rated actors. This must be a Ben Stiller wake up call. Ben you cant write and direct, leave it to the pros.
1 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.
Brian G. from ALPHARETTA, GA Reviewed on 8/18/2010...
Love this movie! So funny, brilliantly done.
Michelle S. (Chelly10s) from W HOLLYWOOD, CA Reviewed on 8/11/2009...
Absolutely hilarious. A comedic gem.
Susan G. (liliroze) from NEW CASTLE, DE Reviewed on 4/5/2009...
Funny, funny, funny. Not really kid-friendly -- there is a "sex scene" in the middle that is mostly dialogue and inference (yet completely unnecessary), and the movie opens with a gasoline fight that adults will see as the farce it is, but would confuse kids. So keep the young ones away, but the adults will crack up.
The cameos are the best part -- Billy Zane, David Bowie and many others who are surprising.
3 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.
Shirley R. (sdrred) Reviewed on 6/5/2008...
I( love these 3 actors and so was disappointed in the movie. Too prissy and fake over the top stuff to be funny. It was over acted and poorly produced.
1 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.
Jeff V. (burielofmel) from HARRIMAN, TN Reviewed on 3/13/2008...
I have no interest in Fashion or the modeling industry but Owen and Ben made a funny film. It's a good movie that I would have never guessed I would like.
4 of 6 member(s) found this review helpful.
Movie Reviews
A Grand Slam Against the Superficiality of "COOL"!
B. Tween_DeLions | USA | 04/11/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Finally, a Hollywood movie that lampoons not just fashion but "COOL"!
It's hard to say exactly when all things cool became blatantly uncool. But the transformation is virtually complete. Almost everything associated with cool these days is little more than superficial, sensationalistic, self-serving, exhibitionist, mindless preening. Cool has come to mean fashion and fashion has come to be virtually anything loud, stupid, unwise, with a heavy heavy dose of self-righteousness thrown in.
The great irony is that "cool" has become the one form of propaganda that young people can't question without being ostracized. One aspect of the sixties movement was about transcending government propaganda aimed at it's own citizens and waking up to a higher reality. But after the sixties generation was no longer setting the trends, "cool" started a downward trend into mindlessness. Now some of the worst propaganda that is foisted on the young is in the form of "youth culture", the one thing that is virtually impossible for young people to question, because peer influence is never so great as when people are young.
The teens and early twenties are the years when peer influence is hardest to resist. And so young people are forced to swallow anything with a "cool" tag attached to it. Cool has become the new God because its dogma has the same kind of unquestionable authority. You simply can't question notions of cool without a million "zombies of cool" ripping you to pieces for your gall in daring to question it.
"Cool" has become a giant snowball rolling downhill. It keeps increasing in mass and velocity. One day it will self-destruct of its own mindlessness, like the children on the island in the novel, Lord of the Flies. Then, hopefully, newer, wiser versions of "cool" will arise to replace the old. But in my opinion, the term "cool" has been worn out and can never be the same again. The word should be retired, because everything associated with it has become tainted with mindlessness. These days, "cool" has become a license to be a loud and aggressive unquestioning idiot.
I respect Ben Stiller for daring to point that out. Although this movie may not be something you can watch over and over, it's something everyone should see once. The obvious premise of this movie might have been "the world of fashion has become superficial nonsense", but the subtext is "cool has become superficial nonsense". It was a brilliant idea. But I'm sure the message will be lost on a lot of young people.
Sixties "cool", of course, was guilty of its own varieties of mindlessness. But things have gotten only worse since then. Cool is the new religious fundamentalism. Question anything and everything! (Except "cool", of course)."