DVD Review: Zoolander
Written by: Kage Alan

Film Rating: C+
DVD Special Features: B-

        In his commentary, Ben Stiller refers to "Zoolander" as "a silly little
movie." Yes, yes it is and I couldn't agree with him more.  "Zoolander" is
the type of film that goes over extremely well in the theatre because there's
an audience and you didn't feel quite so embarrassed to be laughing when they
are too.  It's an entirely different story when you're at home watching it by
yourself.  When it's funny, it's VERY funny.  Stupid funny, but funny.  When
it's not, it drags, but even then we don't mind so much because of all the
eye candy and cameos.

There's not a whole lot of plot here folks.  Mugatu (Will Ferrell, "A Night
At The Roxbury"), a huge fashion guru with an ulterior motive of his own, has
been placed with the task of assassinating the Prime Minister of Malaysia.  
The reason?  The Prime Minister wants to put an end to all the sweatshops in
his country and others where children are exploited.  The fashion industry
doesn't feel it can exist for long if this happens, so somebody has to do the
dirty work.  Mugatu is told to find the most brain dead individual he can,
train him to be an assassin and kill the Prime Minister in 8 days.  Hmm…who
could he possibly have in mind?

Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller, "Something About Mary" and "Mystery Men") is VH1's three-time male "model of the year" who's going for win number four.   His only competition is the new and upcoming success story Hansel (Owen Wilson, "Shanghai Noon" and "The Haunting"), a brash blonde hippie type who brandishes a really cool scooter that folds up and sits on his back.  He's also good with a yo-yo, if that makes any difference to you at all.  Anyway, Derek decides to retire after losing out to Hansel at the awards show.  That is, of course, also after three of Derek's model friends and burned to a crisp enacting a stereotypical modeling commercial with gasoline.  Don't ask, but it is a funny moment.

Derek returns to his home and joins his father (Jon Voight, "Tomb Raider")
and brothers working in a coal mine.  It's a short-lived experience and Derek
is called back by his scheming boss (played by none other than Stiller's real
life father, Jerry Stiller) to do a modeling job for Mugatu.  Throw in a cute
reporter named Matilda (Christine Taylor, Ben Stiller's wife) who smells more
to the story than just getting her name plastered on a front page story, an
old hand model (David Duchovny) who understand the conspiracy at hand (no pun intended) and the henchwoman of all fashion henchwomen, Katinka (the
fantastic Milla Jovovich, "The Fifth Element"), and you've got a really sleek
looking downright stupid movie!

When I wasn't busy waiting for something to laugh at, and "Zoolander" does
have its moments, I was scanning the screen for all the cameos that the film
packed into its short (thank God!) 88 minute running time.  I mean, it's
ridiculous!  How in the world did Stiller, who also directed, manage to get
the cast that he did along with cameos by Winona Ryder, Donald Trump,
Christian Slater, Moby, Cuba Gooding Jr., Tommy Hilfiger, Natalie Portman,
Fabio, Lenny Kravitz, Billy Zane, Gwen Sefani, David Bowie, James Bass from "N-Sync", L'il Kim, Gary Shandling, Stephen Dorff, Sandra Bernhard, Claudio Schiffer, Lukas Haas and a ton of others?  I think I had more fun watching for these people than I did watching areas where there was supposed to be plot going on.

While Ben Stiller really played up the role he created for VH1 a couple of
years ago, Owen Wilson turned out to be the ham!  I've never been greatly
impressed with the man, but that's because I never saw how versatile an actor
he really is until recently.  He does have talent and manages to bring
something unique to each role, especially this one.  How many people do you
know who can Breakdance Fight?  Will Ferrell must have had a blast going o
ver-the-top playing Mugatu (and that was his REAL hair!) as did Milla
Jovovich with her odd little kitten-with-a-fashionable-whip Katinka.  What
more could we ask for?  A funnier script, perhaps.  It went through something
like 20 different rewrites and they were still struggling with some of the
material.  Why not wait until you're really sure you've got it next time and
then film it?  As it was, the majority of the adlibs made it into the final
cut of the film, so that makes me realize just how unfunny the last version
of the script must have been.

Thankfully, Paramount has given us an absolutely great looking and sounding
disc!  The Widescreen transfer really does the colors used in the film
justice and the soundtrack really comes through nicely, especially with all
the pop music playing throughout.  One thing I really appreciate about Ben
Stiller is that he is a fan of Widescreen and sees all the advantages of
using that format.  We need more directors like him speaking out on that
subject.

Before I get into the extras, I want to say that while I rarely if ever
mention the menus on a DVD because I don't really care how flashy or plain
they are, the main menu of "Zoolander" had me laughing a certain part of my
anatomy off!  A voiceover by Derek attempts to explain what all the words at
the bottom of the screen mean and it's an absolute stitch.  Okay, the extras.
There's a commentary track by Stiller and co-writers Drake Sather and John
Hamburg.  As commentaries go, I've heard worse, but I've also heard better.
This isn't exactly the deepest of philosophical films, so they tend to talk
more about what was originally scripted, how it changed, how fantastic their
sets and actors are as well as who's playing a cameo in a particular scene.
They also sound like they've seen the film one too many times and are forcing
themselves to sit through it again for the sake of the commentary.  A good
time was NOT had by all.

There are 5 deleted scenes and 5 extended scenes that can be played with Ben Stiller commentary or without.  The commentary once again doesn't add much and the scenes don't either.  Lots of different ideas and plot points were
dropped in production, so this is kind of collection of some of those along
with sections cut for time.  The outtakes reel has some funny moments,
especially between Stiller and Wilson, but doesn't exactly stand out as
something I'll want to see twice.  The two original skits that Stiller wrote
for the VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards in 1996 and 1997 are included.  Some of the jokes in these 2 minute pieces were used in the movie, so it's kind of
interesting to see how the character developed.  There's also a music video,
some promotional spots, a photo gallery divided up between the model
characters in the film as well as production and then finally an alternate
end title sequence, which is better than the one used in the actual film.

Paramount isn't calling "Zoolander" a special edition and I'm surprised.  The
only thing it's missing is a behind-the-scenes documentary, but do we really
need one?  Like I said, this isn't the deepest of movies here.  Overall,
there were some funny moments in the film that I won't spoil for you if you
haven't seen it, but I turned it off feeling disappointed.  I think they had
more fun filming the movie than was actually translated into the script.  
Just keep thanking them for making it so short.  My final thoughts?  You'll
laugh, you'll cry, you'll kick yourself when you realize you just shelled out
$16 for a movie whose goal is to make the world safe for male models
everywhere.

Kage holds degrees in Creative Writing, as well as Film & Video. He has been featured in a Life Journey Tele-Course, published poems in several national anthologies, been a contributor to The Third Coast Magazine and written several novels. kage@modamag.com This site is a