AT THE MOVIES

Zoolander 2 Success must have gone to his head; a mere 15 years after writer/director/ star Ben Stiller’s cult comedy Zoolander comes the sequel, which follows a kind of Austin Powers model: get the band back together; add one or two new characters; steal the lead’s mojo; and riff on jokes from the first one. Though bookended by a lengthy prologue and a drawn- out explanation, Z2 delivers some laugh as Stiller’s dim-witted model Derek Zoolander tries to solve a crime — someone is killing the great pop stars in Europe — and reconnect with his son. Owen Wilson returns as Hansel, and Kyle Mooney is great as an incomprehensibly hip designer. ΩΩ½ Chris

Knight, Weekend Post

You can’t keep a good superhero down. Nor, as this film proves, a morally conflicted one. If SpiderMan and Lenny Bruce had a baby, and the Joker raised him, you might end up with someone l i ke Deadpool, ( a. k. a. Wade Wilson, a. k. a. Ryan Reynolds), a motormouthed mercenary hot on the trail of the mad scientist ( Ed Skrein) who gave him incredible regenerative powers but also stole his good looks. Morena Baccarin plays his girlfriend, but the movie doesn’t have much time for women who aren’t fighting. The self-aware humour lands often enough to amuse, but be aware that it’s very, very R-rated. ΩΩΩ C. K.