Year: 2016
Director: Ben Stiller
Ah the comedy sequel. Significantly trickier than the action sequel methinks. Action sequel – bigger budget, more of the baddies, better FX, bigger cast and the odd star cameo and generally do all the things you’d have done in the original. Aliens 2, T2, Mad Max 2, The Matrix Reloaded. Ok maybe not the Matrix. All of which equals bigger box office. Even for The Matrix Reloaded.
The comedy sequel? Didn’t you tell all the good jokes about your creations first time around. Yes there’s a bigger budget and more star cameos. But are there more good jokes to be told? And so to Zoolander 2. Zoo2. Z2 even. We were the target audience, as all here were in agreement that Z1 was generally a work of genius, but are Hansel and Derek still hot right now?
There’s a bigger budget. There are loads of celebrity cameos – from the ‘do a bit of acting here’ ones – Bieber, Sting, Cumberbatch – to the one-gag visual punchline (Susan Boyle, MC Hammer). The plot is really not the point, but such as it is it consists of the ‘one last mission’ return from the wilderness followed by a virtual retread of the first one. There’s Derek’s son, the return of Mugutu and some vaguely illuminati style conspiracy. It’s lazier even than the standard Ferrell/Stiller movie, if such a thing were possible.
The plot is really there to hang the gags on. Ah. What there is not is many good jokes. There’s a running gag about Hansel’s orgy posse that is spectacularly unfunny and really just an excuse to crowbar in more cameos.If the funniest thing in the whole movie is the ‘what happened next’ montage over the credits then we’ve probably wasted 90 minutes. They really did tell most of the jokes they had in the first one.
I guess in the pantheon of comedy 2’s it ranks well below Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey and the modern exemplar of how to do a comedy sequel, 22 Jump Street. 22JS has Ice Cube raving about how the sequel has paid for his enormous new glass office, tons of flunkies and espressos all round. Half-way through the film the bigger budget runs out. For a film allegedly poking fun at the fashion industry Z2 has precious little of this self-awareness. The raft of real fashion designers at the end shows how soft the satire is this time round.
Would be interested in other people’s views and whether anyone enjoyed themselves. I should add that for daughter the entire film was saved by the fact that Derek in the sequence where he is being a bad parent he is wearing the same dinosaur onesie she has.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
Sting completists? Tommy Hilfiger and Anna Wintour fans.
Thanks for the review. I’ll cross that one off my list.
Glad you mention 22 Jump Street which is marvellous (and perhaps deserves to be in the Canon?) They get the blend of action, comedy and witty post-modern humour just right. Ice Cube is a fine comic actor.
Comedy is difficult at the best of times, A comedy sequel even more so. The younger viewer is not going to complain if a studio just serves up more of the same with a few ingredients. My son enjoyed Home Alone 2 a lot.
I enjoyed Anchorman 2 and thought it managed a little more than that.
Then again look at the Carry On film. The same dish served again and again. Familiarity breeds content.
Enjoyable enough.
Clearly made for the cash rather than any over arching piece of art or grand idea but passed a couple of hours nicely. I did think Will Ferrell was again the scene stealer
Bonus appearance of Ariana Grande which is never a bad thing.