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: Hitman Agent 47

I thought I'd be hard pressed to see a film worse than Fantastic Four this year.
In only one month, I have been proved wrong by Hitman Agent 47.

We're shoved full steam through a rushed overview of the film's setting by a narrator for the first few minutes. It's meant to set the scene, but does little towards making the film we're about to see make any sense. This film is not about an assassin, it is barely even about the titular 47 at all in fact. For the majority of the film we follow a young woman, Katia, who has spent her whole life searching for a mysterious man.
That really is all we're given to go on, as due to the truly awful plot, not much more makes sense. The man Katia seeks is her father, the creator of the secret project that created 47, but she doesn't know either of these details. So why or how she has spent her life searching for him is utterly a mystery, with no forthcoming explanation as the film goes on.
Pursued by the over-aggressive Agent 47, and teaming up with a strange man who calls himself John Smith, the woman continues her search across the globe. When they aren't being shot at by 47, we're treated to some truly excruciating dialogue scenes between Katia and John, that just feel incredibly awkward. Katia spends the whole film with tears in her eyes for no reason, making her performance seem melodramatic, and John Smith is just plain one of the worst characters put to the screen this year. His dialogue is dull, his personality is non-existant, and everything is delivered by an apparently stoned Zachary Quinto in his worst role to date.
47 pulls more face/heel turns than the Undertaker in the films first act, going from brooding, thoughtful hero to a bullet spraying maniac in minutes. Anyone who has played a Hitman game knows that it's about subtlety and subterfuge, the goal being for 47 to eliminate his targets with precision kills, and escaping entirely unseen. The 47 we see here has less subtlety than Anton Chigurh, pulling out his twin Berettas and blasting noisily away in every scene.
After 47 and Katia team up to find her father, the film settles into an uneven pace of extreme, almost comedic violence and long boring scenes of tiring dialogue. How a film can spend so much time talking and still make no sense is beyond me. So much of the film's plot runs entirely on hunches and pure guess work that it seems none of these highly specialized characters really know what they're doing. 

By the time the film rolls to a climax, we've switched protagonists a few times, and we've barely seen the character who is meant to be the arch villain, and really never even get an idea of who he's even meant to be before our heroes confront him.

There is so little enjoyable about this second adaptation of the popular video game series that it's really hard to know where to start. The protagonist, the titular 47, is soulless and devoid of personality, but not in the good way you expect from this character. His lines are wooden, and his wishy washy character simply doesn't make any sense. He's demanding his female ward to "Trust me!" in a desperate tone one scene, and then sadly sighing "Don't put your faith in me." the next. We see none of the thoughtful, intellectual character here, and he frankly comes off as awkward throughout the whole film. To make matters worse, the actor taking the mantle of 47, Rupert Friend, is simply not intimidating in the role. His voice carries no weight, and his stature is neither imposing, not threatening. The character of 47 is meant to be a human apex predator, a perfect, precise killing machine. What we have here is a James Bond sidekick at best.

Katia is an oddly soulless lead as well. A character who seems driven for no clear reason, with goals we never truly understand. She is said to have 'advanced survival abilities' which appear to manifest in the film as her literally seeing the future, and these abilities are continually used as a segway between scenes or get-out-of-awkward-situation free cards. Instead of it appearing like she's a character with advanced, inherent skills, it just seems supernatural, almost psychic in nature, and doesn't fit at all. There's even a baffling moment suggesting that Katia and 47 communicate telepathically that isn't remotely satisfactorily explained. The film can't quite decide if her story or 47's is the central one, so neither feel properly fleshed out, and her relationship to 47 is so thin and unconvincing, there's absolutely nothing to suggest she wouldn't switch alliances again at the drop of a hat.

This is a film that insists upon mood with nothing to back it up, providing a facade of drama without any substance behind it. 47 or John Smith will have action scenes of such little interest or impact, backed up with a soundtrack that desperately suggests to you that the scene is cool. The same is true of several painful scenes of drama, where a sudden violin overture will kick in to remind you to switch from excitement to sadness, because the dialogue sure as hell isn't going to get you there. You'll notice dialogue exchanges lifted straight from other films, in fact.

Hitman: Agent 47 boils down to an uninteresting and predictable climax, with little excitement along the way. The journey to the finale feels routine and genuinely uninspired, and the last scene is empty of any real feeling of satisfaction or resolution. There aren't loose ends, so to speak, just empty plot points. Why introduce 47's dispatcher at all if she never plays any significance on the plot whatsoever, and why does 47 disobey his orders without any reason? Why repeatedly show that Katia takes apart objects when she's bored, and never bring it back in the story? Unanswered questions that pull apart the integrity of the main characters make the whole thing feel like a half baked plan, a first draft that never saw another look.

It's hard to make a good video game movie, we know this from the long history of tepid adaptations, but Hitman: Agent 47 is a poor excuse for an attempt in almost every way.