Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Zoolander
Paramount Pictures


6.9

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 71 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Tropic Thunder

MPAA RATING: PG-13 on appeal for sexual content and drug references

Starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Christine Taylor, Will Ferrell, Jerry Stiller, Milla Jovovich, and David Duchovny

Follows the world's most famous -- and empty-headed -- male model as he discovers the horrifying secret behind why there are no male models who live past the age of 30. (Paramount Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Comedy
WRITTEN BY:	Drake Sather (also story) Ben Stiller (also story) John Hamburg
DIRECTED BY:	Ben Stiller
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 12, 2002 Video: March 12, 2002 Theatrical: September 28, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	86 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Exuberant and insidiously funny satire.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Something this gleefully goofy and consistently funny would be welcome in any environment.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Well-paced, scathingly funny satire of the fashion industry and its eminently lampoonable pomposity.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Works like a funnier "Austin Powers" -- you laugh just enough to want to see the whole thing again.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

The result is a freakishly potent farce.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Basically one elaborate joke about male modeling and all the vanity, emasculation, and fatuousness that attend it. Fortunately, it's a good joke.

Film Threat Chris Gore

Stiller is laugh-out-loud funny from start to finish and anyone that may quibble about plot minutiae, is just not ready to have a good time.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

One's laughter builds on such a rising curve that memories of its flaws burn away.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Anyhow, I believe you would probably like this movie if you let your mind drift during the slow parts. That is easier for some of us than others, and I was thinking about my next runway project about half of the time.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The humor is simple but far from dumb. The dueling "walk-off" between rival male mannequins is inspired, as are the sly juxtapositions of the male model's faux physicality with such real-world demands as coal mining.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Isn't always on the money, but when it is, it really is.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Often unspeakably funny.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The gags hit more than they miss, and Stiller has moments of inspired absurdity, but he's capable of something more cutting and clever. It's junk food moviemaking: fun to snack on, but hardly a substantial meal.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Zoolander's consistent, blissful stupidity is a comic, mental Xanax, soothing in its gormless sense of inspired wack.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Fluffy, inconsistent, but enjoyable.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

What Zoolander does have, and this was enough for me, is a sublime comic performance by Owen Wilson, as the supermodel Hansel, positively radiant in its dimness.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A hit-and-miss affair, but it's smart and good-natured enough to guarantee Stiller an open invitation to host VH1's annual Fashion Awards.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's a diverting mess, sometimes even a delightful mess.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Misses its comic targets as often as it hits them but is endearing all the same for the good-natured cheer with which it skewers the eminently skewerable.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

Like all films constructed out of pop-culture effluvia, Zoolander runs the risk of being so last month; this is a movie that treats Fabio as the ultimate punch line and regards David Bowie as the prince of style.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's to Stiller's credit that he can sustain the joke for the length of the movie, but just barely. Ten more minutes of Zoolander would have been 10 minutes too many.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

The main problem is the director-star's choice to play so far beneath his intelligence for so long. Stiller lacks the physical gifts and projected sweetness of, say, Jim Carrey in "Dumb and Dumber," and unlike Peter Sellers in the "Pink Panther" movies, he can't keep a straight face.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

When he's playing a relatively normal guy ringed by eccentrics, as in "There's Something About Mary" and "Meet the Parents," Stiller can be flat-out funny. In Zoolander, he's just one nutso among many, and he cancels himself out.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Even though it’s mostly pleasant and sometimes funny, Zoolander could use some sort of boost.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Overall, how funny you find it will probably depend on whether or not the mere sight of Stiller sucking in his cheeks, widening his eyes and striking preposterous poses makes you laugh uproariously.

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

It's probably pointless to complain when a movie sets out to be stupid and actually is. (And the people who came up with a couple of these ideas think male models are dumb.)

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A sometimes inspired but sputtering parody of the fashion industry. It's desperate to please, yet never unzips the fancy pants of haute couture.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

In theory, Zoolander is ''Pret-à-Porter'' on laughing gas. In practice, however, the movie is an ill-fitting suit of gags, too long in the crotch even at 90 minutes.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There have been articles lately asking why the United States is so hated in some parts of the world. As this week's Exhibit A from Hollywood, I offer Zoolander.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Isn't absurd enough to be funny.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 71 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kevin M gave it a10:
I can't understand some people's extreme dislike for this movie. I loved every minute of this movie and I'm sorry if it was too wacky for some, but that's the point.

S Burr gave it a5:
An average comedy as far as comedies go. This movie is worth quite a few guilty laughs... which brings me to the fact that Poor K. really needs to lower the blood pressure. Getting all worked up like that over this silly movie is like getting mad at an 8 year old child for calling you Poopface. Please calm down, you are embarrassing yourself... it's just a (stupid) movie.

Rahul D. gave it a10:
This is one of the best comedies out there. If you want a quick laugh without thinking, watch this.

Abby gave it an8:
I am still laughing.

Egbert N. gave it a1:
Truly one of the worst films I have ever seen. And what's with all the apparently deliberate offense towards Malaysia? Avoid at all costs.

Poor K. gave it a0:
Watching this movie was a deeply sickening experience that will haunt me to the day I die (and maybe in the after-life). I can't believe none of the reviews I read took the movie to task for the unbelievably naive, stupid, ridiculous, misleading, dangerous ideas it espouses - all the while pretending to be a feel-good do-good movie. I cannot fathom the self-serving diatribe against 'sweat shops' in developing countries. Sure, it might benefit some of the lower skilled workers in rich countries if we stopped buying from third world countries, but what happens to those third world country workers after the factories close down??? This movie has an even more outrageous and mind-numbing solution, pass a law in third world countries raising pay for everyone! Oh horray horray! How simple! So all the poor developing countries in the world could become instantly rich and prosperous overnight if their government would only pass a law mandating that everyone should get paid a million dollars a day! Wow! I have seen the light! What a sure and solid grasp of economic fundamentals! And why don't all the governments of the world just do this? Surely it would ensure the undying gratitude and votes of the masses that would ensure you stayed in power forever. You would go down in posterity and people would be naming their grandchildren after you long after you've passed away! So why not? Because they are getting pressure from evil big business? The convenient bogeyman and favourite bad guy of simplistic and morally smug movies from Hollywood. Oh it all makes sense now! Really, movies have their role as entertainment, but when they get into deep social messages - they usually do more harm than good.

Emma N. gave it an8:
My brother made me watch this movie coz he loved it SO much. And I must admit, it is very funny. A creative idea executed to near highest standards. V. Good.

Zoolander Paramount Pictures

Zoolander
Paramount Pictures