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My Review of "Zoolander 2"

After a second viewing I had found some redeeming qualities about this movie but I still didn't like it.

By Brian AnonymousPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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Zoolander 2 came out in 2016 a full 15 years after the first Zoolander. I mentioned in my review of the original Zoolander that I loved the movie. It would come to no surprise that I would be pessimistic about the sequel. This movie taught me a bunch of things about pop culture that I didn't realize during my first viewing. I remember hating it when I first saw it and I can't really say that I actually like this movie now but I do see some redeeming qualities.

This movie starts out 15 years after the first Zoolander. It literally starts out with a bang when a celebrity gets chased down only to get gunned down. The opening sequence was beautifully made because it sets the stage with intrigue with a good dose of comedy. The problem is that it kind of falters after this.

Zoolander's story is quickly told through paparazzi news. Right after the ending of the original movie, Zoolander's "Center for kids who can't read good" collapses under pretty absurd and hilarious circumstances. Unfortunately his wife Matilda had passed away and Hansel can't model anymore because he's been facially deformed from the accident. Even worse Zoolander loses custody of his only son.

Meanwhile Hansel finds out that he's impregnated everyone in his orgy group and runs away as he doesn't want to be a father. The two famous models eventually meet up with one another because a new top fashion designer wants them to model for his fashion show.

Little does Zoolander know but he's the key to solve the mystery of the pop star assassinations. The movie is already all over the place but it gets even more tangled in a web of absurdity as it goes on. The original movie had a fairly simple premise and focused on this simple story-line to keep the audience engaged with the outrageous antics of the title character. This movie has totally lost that simplicity.

I get it, with sequels you want things to be bigger and better. In this case, it didn't really work. The original movie dabbled with reality close to the end of the movie and this movie goes full out ridiculous by the end. You have to pick your battles and there are times when bigger and better doesn't even make sense in a movie anymore. This movie crossed the line in many of those aspects.

It did however have fantastic cameos. They kept coming and coming as there was an endless list of famous people in this movie that made for some pretty funny moments. I'm actually really surprised that so many of the returning cast aged so well after 15 years. Whatever they are doing I want to get in on it.

They make mention of a lot of throwback jokes from the original movie too. In a lot of ways I found that this movie kind of relied on those old jokes to keep this movie going. I learned that pop culture changes really fast nowadays as apposed to the past. That's probably why Zoolander was able to play around with pop culture so well back in 2001 and this one didn't fare quite as well.

There were references to Netflix but they were talking about their disk mail service. They joked around that back in 2001 we wanted cell phones to be smaller and smaller by explaining that people now use tablets instead of cell phones. This joke is already outdated as the sizes of phones haven't really changed for quite some time and we aren't using tablets as often.

I like how they attempted to make fun of the changes in fashion and fashion models. Zoolander and Hansel are definitely relics in the industry 15 years later. Fashion continues to change every year. We see a lot of different trends and really who can keep up with social media nowadays.

Overall, This is still a pretty bad movie but I see some redeeming qualities now. Looking back you'll realize they made this movie during a huge transition time in our society. We were changing media formats and our ideology of fashion. I have to give this movie a 4.5 out of 10. In the end this movie is supposed to be about Zoolander and Hansel learning to become fathers. What we got was an utter mess that goes all over the place.

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About the Creator

Brian Anonymous

I have tons of opinions that change constantly. I watch a lot of movies and play video games. There are some articles on my struggles with languages and dance as well.

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