Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: Airheaded male model is swept up with assassination attempt.
Biased, pithy comments: I find big-budget comedies the hardest to rate. If the laugh-per-minute rate is low, but the laughs you do find can be really funny, was it worth the time? In this film, there was clearly a lot of improvisation which probably seemed funnier at the time than it did when they edited it all together---a few really limp one-liners and a fair amount of mugging at the camera seem not worth the trouble to record. No, it's mostly just Stiller and his friends in front of the camera doing silly things that have only a tangential relation to reali. This is good, since it makes it light and inoffensive, but bad because it means they are basically incapable of providing any real satire.
Other Notes: This movie came out in the wake of the 2001 September 11th terrorism attacks, and it seemed like half the audience was so happy not to be watching the World Trade Center collapse that they loved the film; the other half seemed to have the same yearning for something better that I had.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Owen Wilson, Will Farrell.
Directed by: Ben Stiller