Official Doomtown Fiction: 'Nine Tenths of the Law'

Fourth official Doomtown story, Nine Tenths of the Law

Movie Review: Zoolander 2.

The world of fashion is a freaky and terrible place full of beauty and fear and painful stupidity, and no movie got that right in a more hilarious way than 2001's Zoolander. Hilarious characters, brilliant dialogue, and moments of surreal ridiculousness make it one of the most quoted comedies out there even 15 years after release.

Those seeking more of the unique comedy of Zoolander in the fancy new shoes of Zoolander No.2, will be sorely disappointed, however. In the same way we saw a few years back in Anchorman 2, Zoolander 2 takes the jokes that worked in the first film and tells them again, bigger and longer, and over and over. Sometimes it works, and there's a little of the old magic to be found, but unfortunately, the majority of Zoolander 2 is noticeably free of laughs.

Derek Zoolander has been in seclusion since the tragic death of his wife and the surrendering of his son to child services after the fated collapse of the Derek Zoolander school for kids who can't read good and who wanna learn to do other stuff good too. When he's contacted by globe-trotting Billy Zane and urged to return to the world of modelling, and thus regain his former life and the love of his son, Zoolander makes the long trip to Rome to meet with new fashion mogul Atoz and her mysterious crew of fashion villains.

Similarly returning from a life outside of the spotlight is free-love enthusiast Hansel, seeking a desperate escape from his quiet life when he learns he's got all 7 of his poly-amorous multi-racial lovers pregnant at once. Face to face once more, the two washed up male models must regain their skill and passion for the art, and along the way foil a Da Vinci Code style clandestine conspiracy to eliminate the world's pop-stars and save Zoolander's son from the machinations of the nefarious Mugatu.

Now as said, there is a little joy to be found in the returning characters. Zoolander and Hansel are great as they always were, and returning villain Mugatu is still probably the best character of the whole piece, but almost every new character that Zoolander 2 forces upon us is frankly awful. New antagonist Don Atari is particularly bad, with far too much time wasted on his endless and painfully unfunny faux-hipster dialogue. Other new characters like the awkwardly animated eleven-year-old-played-by-middle-aged-man Vip are just inexplicable as well as not funny, and the humor seems more forced on reminding the viewer how long it's been since the last movie than really giving us anything new to enjoy in this one. Some jokes that take great time and money to set up fall astoundingly flat, at one point in particular a car stunt that must have cost a fortune to shoot gives us about the weakest punchline in the entire film. The reprieves as far as new characters are concerned are found in the Fashion Police agent helping Derek and Hansel in their quest, who's not terrifically funny, but it does mean we get to see Penelope Cruz in lingerie swimwear, so be thankful for small mercies. Atoz herself is a great send-up of Donatella Versace, but one that runs a little out of steam with her only joke.

A big part of the first Zoolander's comedy came from careful celebrity cameos, and it made them feel organic, like they were a part of the story and there for a reason. Zoolander 2 takes that idea and utterly spoils it, by hamfisting in every celebrity they possibly can, just to have Derek or Hansel loudly exclaim their name and say "Wow, what're you doing here in (insert kooky situation)?" and then move on. A handful of the cameos are well placed, like an actually acting Keifer Sutherland who's too funny for the rest of the film, and some choice members of real fashion society, but most are just pathetic. No one who is a fan of the original Zoolander is going to be excited at the prospect of a Katy Perry or Kim Kardashian cameo.

Zoolander 2 really is a little taste of fashion week. There's some brilliance shining through, some diamonds amidst the rough, but the majority of what you'll see flouncing about on stage really is a lot of nonsense that no one would ever want to wear.

Movie Review: Deadpool.

Deadpool is a huge risk for the studio that made it, everyone knows this. A character popular with fans of the genre but almost entirely unknown to everyone else, and an R rated superhero film to boot. There hasn't been a successful one since Blade. How this film got made is probably a fantastic story in itself. Whoever talked such a thing into production will hopefully now be investigated, because Deadpool is fucking great fun for everyone involved.

For those who haven't read comics or walked into a Hot Topic in the last year, Deadpool is one of Marvel's current flagship characters. The alternative to the goodie-goodie stock heroics of Iron Man and The Avengers, Deadpool is a fast talking gun-for-hire with a split personality who constantly abuses the fourth wall. Translating this to other mediums is touchy, sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. Deadpool had a great video game release a few years ago that took the violence and quirkiness of the character and ran with it in a really fun way, but attempts to translate the character to novel form felt weird, and attempts to shoehorn him into the family friendly box for some of Marvel's cartoon shows left the character feeling justifiably neutered.

Making the Deadpool movie an R, and a HARD R at that, was the wisest thing anyone could have done with the property.

Deadpool pulls no punches. You'll see the most graphic violence on the screen so far this year, with the wise cracking mercenary cheerfully dropping F-bombs as he causes a multi car pileup and decapitates a motorbike rider with his own bike chain in the first few scenes. Then Deadpool turns to the camera, address the viewers, and invites us to enjoy his story. It's a story filled with blood, violence, naughty naughty words, elder abuse, masturbation, and a surprising amount of full frontal nudity for a film that, at some point, someone at Disney had to sign off on.

There isn't much depth to the plot, but it doesn't feel too light. It's an origin story, mixed with good old fashioned revenge. Deadpool takes us through his fated life as a street mercenary, spending his free time with the rowdy crowd of a local bar, where he meets Vanessa; the woman of his dreams, a take no shit prostitute who can talk Star Wars and generally best him at life decisions. The backstreet romance that Wade and Vanessa share is more convincing than most forced partnerships you'd see in a rom-com. When Wade is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he finally finds he has a reason to live, and so signs up for the terrible mutant experimentation of cockney-as-fuck supervillain Ajax.

Ajax probably isn't a villain that gets comic fans excited, he was a second rate character in the source material, but the Deadpool character does have a startling lack of true villains of his own in any medium, and what is done with Ajax on screen is really good. He's a no-nonsense, professional bad guy. More like something out of Lock, Stock than The Avengers. The urge to have him act like a supervillain is subverted in favor of him being a genuinely nasty piece of work.  When Ajax's horrific forced evolution experiments turn Wade into the hideous Deadpool and leaves him for dead in a blazing inferno, Deadpool pulls himself from the wreckage embued with his new mutant powers and a thirst for revenge.

There's pretty much just a first act and a third, and I could have done with a bit more meat in between, but keeping the pace moving with the snappiness it does, took careful work, and maybe shaking that up wouldn't work. There are an assortment of side characters, like Wade's friend and confidant Weasel, who is somehow both comedy sidekick and straight man foil at the same time, and the brilliant Blind Al, a character much loved by fans who is just fantastic here. All of these characters only see brief screentime, which is a shame in my opinion, some of these little characters needed plot resolution too.

Deadpool's only genuine allies along his path to revenge are Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead. The inclusion of these two X-Men property characters is actually incredibly well done in a few ways. It opens the door to most of the best fourth wall breaking jokes in the movie, as well as somehow giving the hint of an expanded universe in a more enjoyable way than ever before.

The most noticeable thing about Deadpool is that it doesn't really feel like a superhero movie. It is an action-comedy-romance-horror. A romactiohoredy, if you will. It has scenes of a relationship more honest and fun to watch than a lot of other films out there, and scenes of claustrophobic body horror that'll make you squirm, The action sequences are visually stunning, with incredible fight choreography. The writing is noticeably sharp. Deadpool is in almost every scene in the entire movie, and talking through each one as he goes, and he doesn't get irritating, he's lovable. His quips are closer to the observations you'd hear watching MST3K than the sort of goofy stuff Spider-Man would come out with. The humor is current and en pointe, with just enough line toed between jokes for everyone and jokes for comic fans that no one is left bewildered by the comedy.

I believe Deadpool will be loved by fans. Deadpool is a ton of fun in almost every way, it's one of the most satisfying adaptations of a comic book in years, and most impressive because it's managed to make itself more adult than the source material. Perhaps most importantly, the success of Deadpool could mean the reevaluation of the R-Rated comic book movie. It could pave the way for properties like Preacher, Transmetropolitan, and Rat Queens to be seriously considered for the big screen, and expanding the world of what is acceptable in film is beating censorship, and that's fantastic.