National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj

Having seen National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj, I am now convinced more than ever that there is a device somewhere in Hollywood where studio heads can feed a bunch of old scripts into it, and the machine will spit out a new script made up of bits and pieces of the old ones. How else can you explain how this movie shamelessly steals plot elements and scenes from past college comedies such as the original Revenge of the Nerds, Animal House, or the American Pie films? While I'm sure this device is handy in a pinch if a studio needs a script in a hurry, it apparently also features an unfortunate side effect in that it removes all the humor and joy from these scripts, leaving us with nothing more than a pale imitation. And that, really, is what Van Wilder 2 boils down to. Even if you are one of the deranged individuals who actually wished for a sequel to the original Van Wilder, you're bound to be disappointed with this half-assed attempt at making a franchise out of a forgettable film from four years ago.

Because the original film's leading man, Ryan Reynolds, was too busy making garbage like The Amityville Horror remake and Waiting to appear in this sequel, we're stuck with Kal Penn, who played Reynolds' Indian sidekick Taj in the last film, as the star this time around. To be fair, Penn has proven that he can carry a movie with the stoner comedy cult classic Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. But here, he is saddled with a script so lame that it is sometimes insulting. The story centers on Taj as he travels overseas to England to continue his education, and pass on the wisdom of his former mentor, Van Wilder, to just about anyone who will stop and listen. (The character of Van Wilder does not appear in this movie, but Taj literally never shuts up about him, so it almost feels like Ryan Reynolds is in this movie in spirit form.) When he arrives at his new college, he is immediately rejected by the stuffy fraternity that rules the campus and is led by the stuck up Pipp Everett (Daniel Percival). Instead, Taj finds himself in a run down dorm house known as "The Barn" that is made up entirely out of a small group of cliched college losers including the nerdy Gethin (Anthony Cozens), the large-breasted Sadie (Holly Davidson), an angry Scotsman named Seamus (Glen Berry), and a video game obsessed mute named Simon (Steven Rathman). Naturally, the sorry residents of The Barn are picked on by the snobbish Pipp and his friends, so Taj decides to change all that by passing on Van Wilder's wisdom onto his new friends, and turning them into proud winners who can hold their heads up high.

The whole "unpopular kids rising up to beat the popular kids at their own game" storyline is as old as the campus comedy itself, and Van Wilder 2 does absolutely nothing to set it apart from the crowd. The only thing it manages to do is make you look fondly back at the movies that were actually able to pull the idea off. You could pretty much watch any college comedy from the 80s, make a check list of all the things you saw, and you'll see them all over again in Van Wilder 2, only a lot lamer and with much less energy and enthusiasm. Does the movie feature a love interest for Taj who is initially in love with the bully villain, only to have her slowly realize that her current boyfriend is a jerk, and the much nicer "loser" characters are a better fit for her? You bet it does. Does the movie lead up to a competition between the two dorm houses where they have to compete in a series of campus games? Come on, you probably already know the answer. Will the bully villain try to discredit the hero by planting stolen test answers, and attempt to get Taj expelled by bringing this to the attention of the school's head Dean? I'm sure the answer to this question will come as a surprise to anyone who has not watched a campus comedy movie made in the last 25 years or so. Scene after dreary scene, the movie piles on the genre cliches as if they were somehow going out of style. Never mind the fact that you can practically see the mold growing on these old plot points, or that many of these cliches have already been skewered on TV shows like The Simpsons. What's worse is that not only can actor-turned-screenwriter David Drew Gallagher not think of a single funny thing to do with these aspects, but that he actually expects the audience to take them seriously.

I'm serious when I say that there's very little humor to be found in Van Wilder 2, and what little there is winds up being of the tired slapstick variety (Taj takes a paintball to the groin), or is simply lame and pathetic. In this film, Taj is not so much a character in a teen sex farce as he is a motivational speaker. He is constantly spewing lengthy speeches about the wisdom Van Wilder passed down to him, or encouraging everyone around him not to give up on their dreams that he hardly has time to say anything funny. Well, okay, I take it back, he does get one line that made me laugh, but that joke was already given away in the trailer, so that doesn't count. They may as well have cast Dr. Phil in the main role, since Taj spends so much time helping out other people with their problems. For what is supposed to be a raunchy teen sex comedy, there is surprisingly little raunch and/or sex to be found. Aside from the film's opening scene on an airplane, a scene set at a dog show that contains the film's sole gross out gag, and a party at Taj's dorm house late in the film, this movie could have easily walked away with a PG-13 rating. Something tells me the audience that would be drawn to a film such as this will be very disappointed by the movie's mysterious lack of sex and gross humor. And when it does give the intended audience what it wants, it is usually immediately forgettable. Nothing works in this movie, and it almost seems as if director Mort Nathan (Boat Trip) was simply at a loss at how to stage a successful comedy sequence. Then again, maybe this is not surprising to those of you who have seen Mr. Nathan's last film.

Since he is given so little to do, Kal Penn is completely wasted in a thankless lead role. Still, it's hard to feel sorry for him, especially since not only does he star in this movie, but he is also credited as one of the Executive Producers in the opening credits. That means he has no one to blame but himself. He does what he can, and he is at least able to show a sliver of personality (something nobody else who wanders onto the screen gets to do), but if he keeps on appearing in stuff like this, his career will be over before too long. The rest of the cast is blandly nondescript, and refuse to make even the slightest bit of impression. Everyone looks like they're simply going through the motions, hoping that the movie will be over soon. With such a bland cast, my attention started to turn to other things, hoping that I could find at least something to hold my interest. In the end, all I could come up with is that some of the scenery was nice, and the film's soundtrack was a lot more lively and fun than anything that happens in the movie itself.

It should come as no surprise that Van Wilder 2 is a bust. I mean, what was the last truly good movie you saw the National Lampoon name attached to? Throw in the fact that its main title is named after a character who doesn't even appear in the movie, and you can probably smell the fumes of a stinker from miles away. What is surprising about Van Wilder 2 is that it manages to go below even the lowest of expectations, and reaches some sort of level where you wonder if the movie was made because the cast and crew were being punished for some reason. I haven't seen an unnecessary sequel to a comedy this bad since 1993's infamous Weekend at Bernie's II, and that's something not to take lightly.

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