Zoolander No. 2 (2016)

Directed by Ben Stiller. Starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Penélope Cruz, Will Ferrell, Cyrus Arnold, Kyle Mooney, Kristen Wiig, Sting, Christine Taylor, Nathan Lee Graham, Billy Zane, Kiefer Sutherland. [PG-13]

Long-awaited, drastically underwhelming Zoolander sequel set about a dozen years after the epilogue of the first film, and the plot is so tediously orchestrated and haphazardly told, there’s almost no point in describing it—Derek and Hansel reconvene to thwart Mugatu again, Matilda is a ghost, Derek has an estranged son (Arnold), Hansel has knocked up everyone in his orgy crew (Kiefer Sutherland included), pop stars are being killed and there’s a human sacrifice ritual or something, Cruz shows up as a swimsuit model-turned-Interpol agent so…Stiller can feel her up? I dunno. Fan service aplenty, slick visuals, a few funny gags in the first half-hour, but to what gain? It’s an overblown yet lazy product, and the last forty-five minutes (around the time that Ferrell shows up, who surprisingly doesn’t do a single thing that’s funny here) earns such stone-faced disinterest that not even the awesome force of “Magnum” can rescue it. Seeing as how she’s unrecognizable as a weirdo fashionista and doesn’t get anything to do, why was Wiig even cast? While it’s true that the original Zoolander was overloaded with celebrity cameos, the sheer volume and crassly gratuitous insertion tactics found here is reminiscent of the Sharknado sequels—the credits have more people paying “himself” or “herself” than fictional characters!

31/100