It looks like the 15 years in waiting didn't much help. The first Zoolander was "okay" nothing too funny about it, except for the "ants" scene and a few memorable moments here or there, but overall it was an acceptable if albeit slight satire on the fashion industry. I'm tempted to skip tonight's pre-screening of "Zoolander 2" and willing to watch it this weekend, but then again I find that watching a comedy is best with a large group of people ready to laugh their asses off - you see tonight's screening is half media and half moviegoers, that's usually always fun. However, just reading these reviews on RottenTomatoes, only enhances the doubts I already had when I first saw the trailer. Stiller is a somewhat formidable director, he's done a few "watchable" things, but I don't find his visual palette that interesting or exciting.The closest he's gotten to making a "statement" was probably Tropic Thunder back in 2008. That movie was of course enhanced by two truly great performances from Robert Downey Jr. and an almost unrecognizable Tom Cruise as Les Grossman, the epitome of greedy Hollywood. Ah good times.
Will probably update this post once I catch it.
EDIT: As suspected it's not a very good movie, in fact it turned out to be worse than I thought. What we're starting to see in Hollywood are once A-list celebrities whom had some kind of artistic credibility, and some still do, that would have refused making useless sequels just a decade ago, but with sequels being released left and right and the superhero genre booming, celebrities have less marketability (no more Jim Carrey, Will Smith or Tom Cruise making 20 million a movie) and there is a sense of desperation in their recent actions. Just look at Jim Carrey refusing to ever do a Dumb and Dumber sequel until finally getting suckered into one a few years ago because, well, those are just the times we live in. "Zoolander 2" is a product of its time and place, and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual artistic merit.