Taking a comic pop at the fashion industry would appear to be the cinematic equivalent of shooting ducks in a barrel.

The narcissistic, self-absorbed world where style is worshipped way ahead of content would appear an easy target for the film-maker with a keen eye for the superfluous.

On paper, Ben Stiller would not appear to be that man - his previous appearance in Meet the Parents saw him playing things pretty safe comedy wise while There's Something About Mary was common or garden gross-out.

He doesn's exactly use a scalpel to carve up the fashionistas...more like a cartoon sledgehammer to pulp the whole gaudy, multi-million pound industry.

Stiller plays Derek Zoolander, an appallingly vacuous male model who routinely wins the Male Model of the Year contest.

However, groovy newcomer Hansel (Owen Wilson) - replete with skateboard, blonde locks and hippy-drippy philosophy - wrests the title from the king of the catwalk.

Zoolander's king's fall from grace in the fickle world of fashion handily ties in with design mogul Mugatu (Saturday Night Live's Will Ferrell) and his search...for an assassin.

He wants the hitman to knock off the newly-elected Malaysian Prime Minister, who has pledged to clamp down on the Far Eastern sweatshops which supply Mugatu with his designer togs.

Zoolander is the ideal killer - he's stupid, vain and disposable, so Mugatu has him brainwashed by his henchwoman Katinka (Milla Jovovich in a rare comic turn).

Plenty of fashion victims (Posh, David Bowie and Claudia Schiffer) send themselves up but, at the end of the day, the fashion industry is beyond parody.

Stiller's scattergun approach hits quite a few targets but most of us can surely see beyond the emperor's new (designer) clothes ourselves.

Tim Evans