THE RUNWAY OF ALL FLESH

Opening this weekend:

Zoolander 2—As targets of urgently needed satire go, male models don’t seem all that high on the list just now. Nonetheless, Ben Stiller has made a sequel to his 2001 Zoolander, and it’s funnier than the original.

At least, I think it is. I can’t really remember. It’s been a freakin’ decade and a half, after all, since the original came out, and I’ve never felt any pressing need to see it again. But I dimly remember getting a chuckle or two out of it, and I got maybe four or five solid chuckles out of this very silly, very belated follow-up. So I’d say it’s funnier than the original, at least a little bit. You know, just in case Paramount might want to quote me and mention this blog in some high-profile print ads.

Craggy-faced, blank-eyed, dull-witted runway model Derek Zoolander (Stiller) has been in isolation for years as a “hermit crab” in a cabin in “Extreme Northern New Jersey,” after having suffered a tragedy and having his son taken away from him. One day he is mysteriously offered a modeling gig at a show in Rome, and soon is asked to assist in an Interpol investigation into the murders of beautiful celebrities—the film opens with such a killing (it’s also in the TV ads) which elicited hearty applause from the screening audience with whom I saw it.

Derek and his old rival/pal Hansel (Owen Wilson at his most relaxed and enjoyable) follow the Interpol investigator (ridiculously stunning Penelope Cruz) into an intrigue combining elements of James Bond and Silence of the Lambs with a sort of Da Vinci Code backstory. Eventually the villainous Mugatu (Will Ferrell) enters the story as well.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting that Zoolander 2 is the laugh-riot of 2016. It’s imbecilic. But it’s so doggedly, insistently imbecilic that from time to time it breaks down your defenses and you start to giggle. Or I did, at least. It has some good revue-sketch performances, too, notably by Kyle Mooney as noxiously hyper-ironic designer “Don Atari.”

The movie also has a staggering number of celebrity cameos, ranging from Ariane Grande to Neil deGrasse Tyson, some barely glimpsed, others in surprisingly juicy roles. In the sheer volume of this sort of glitz, Zoolander 2 is reminiscent of a Muppet movie. But Derek’s face isn’t nearly as expressive as Kermit’s.

TREK SAVVY

Zoolander 2 opens this weekend, again featuring Will Ferrell as the villainous Mugatu…

So, in his honor…

Monster-of-the-Week: …the nod goes to his presumable namesake the Mugato, the terrifying horned white-furred venomous ape-monster designed and played by Janos Prohaska in the second-season original Star Trek episode “A Private Little War”: 

Zoolander director/co-writer/star Ben Stiller would seem to be a pretty hardcore Trekkie: Along with the name “Mugatu,” the new film has a villainess named Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig)—presumably a reference to the well-meaning librarian (Ian Wolfe) in “All Our Yesterdays,” and there’s also the name of Stiller’s company, “Red Hour Productions,” presumably a reference to the “festival” in “Return of the Archons.”

Live long and prosper, dude.

MALAGACHE TROIS

The Kid and I caught up with Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted.

The zoo animals—Ben Stiller as a lion, Chris Rock as a zebra, David Schwimmer as a giraffe, Jada Pinkett Smith as the hippo, etc.—are still trying to get back from Africa to New York, to re-take their places at the Central Park Zoo. This time, by wacky circumstance, they’re going by way of Europe, traveling with animals from a washed-up circus.

The movie’s no classic, but it’s kind of cute, in the frenetic, overproduced way of so many contemporary kids’ movies. It does contain two pretty splendid characters, however: One is Sonya, a mournfully deadpan dancing bear with whom an exuberant lemur falls in love—interspecies romance is rampant in these movies.

The other is the movie’s villainess, DuBois, a relentless, Vespa-borne juggernaut of an animal control officer from Monaco who chases our heroes across the continent, sometimes resorting to all fours herself to sniff their spoor—she covets the lion’s head for her trophy wall.

A terrific visual creation, DuBois is also well-voiced by Frances McDormand, who even gets to sing “Non, je ne regrette rien.”

RIP to Ann Rutherford, a prolific actress now best known for her small role as one of Scarlett’s sisters in Gone With the Wind, passed on at 94. I saw her a couple of years ago in Palm Springs, and even in her early ‘90s, she was quite the Hollywood vision in pink pantsuit and glam shades.

RIP also to Frank Cady, passed on at 96, best known for playing general store owner Sam Drucker in the Paul Henning universe—Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies—and similar characters in dozens of TV shows and movies ranging from Rear Window to When Worlds Collide to The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. Like a lot of people, I was startled to learn that he hadn’t passed on years ago.