Fashion faux pas

‘I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking,’ said a pouty Derek Zoolander back in 2001.

Well, apparently not. Because Zoolander 2, the long-awaited sequel to Ben Stiller’s cult hit undercutting the male-model industry, is a good-looking bore, a fashion faux pas where hot celebrities such as Kate Moss, Penélope Cruz and Kim Kardashian are parachuted in to make a relentlessly dreary script look good.

Except they don’t. They can’t. What on earth was Stiller thinking? Or Owen Wilson, back here as the loveable frenemy Hansel. Or, for that matter, the endless parade of fashion and rock-star cameos? Anna Wintour, Justin Bieber, Sting. Even the great Benedict Cumberbatch, in a desperately unfunny ‘ambigender’ role that’s already ruffled a few feathers. They’re given nothing to work with. Did none of them ask about the plot before signing up?

Perhaps that’s a little unfair. After all, the plot of the first film was equally absurd, so presumably all these celebs simply assumed that the recipe for success lay in that absurdity (it didn’t — more on that in a bit). Back then, Derek Zoolander (Stiller), stupid male supermodel extraordinaire, was brainwashed by the great designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) into killing the Malaysian Prime Minister, whose progressive child-labour laws were putting a dent in worldwide fashion profits. Naturally.

In the sequel (originally titled Twolander, apparently) Mugatu is back, but he’s bigger and far badder. And instead of fashion-world skulduggery we have a pseudo-religious historical conspiracy of Dan Brown-esque proportions (seriously — there are monastic robes). Things haven’t turned out so well for Zoolander. His wife and child are gone, as is The Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too and the world’s former top male model is living alone in the wilderness, by his own description, ‘a hermit crab’.