Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj DVD Review

by Kam Williams

Sequel Sans Star Released on DVD Simply a Sorry Ripoff

It's a big hint that a sequel's a flop, when the actor playing the title character doesn't return. Such is the case with Van Wilder 2, where Kal Penn is the only member of the principal cast reprising a role. Kal is back in an expanded capacity as Taj Majal Badalandabad, along with Balzac, his pet bulldog with gargantuan gonads and copious quantities of semen.

In the original, a bawdy college comedy, Taj was party animal Van's sex-obsessed sidekick and the brains behind enterprising ideas like topless tutors and hedonistic orgies which left little to the imagination. In this infantile installment, he's left the U.S. for England where he's matriculated as a grad student at the mythical Camford University, a name created from an obvious blend of Cambridge and Oxford.

This tacky teensploit trades in inscrutable idioms and cockney accents likely to be lost on an American audience. Even the ethnic humor seems oddly inappropriate, with most of it directed at Taj's heritage. He's called everything from a "curry-breathing cretin" to a "Third World, cow-loving social reject."

The sexcapades and scatology are tame in comparison to the original. In fact, the movie reads more like an American Pie rip-off, given that Taj's parents burst into his dorm room at a most inopportune moment. Plus, the story revolves around his pursuit of a cute coed (Lauren Cohan), leaving the first flick's partying theme almost as an afterthought.

From haphazard editing to clueless cinematography to godawful acting to gaping plot holes in an already implausible premise to a failure to generate any laughs to low production values, The Rise of Taj has all the earmarks of your classic "take the money and run" sequel. An incompetent sophomore effort from director Mort Nathan, a hopeless hack whose bomb Boat Trip (2002) was just as bad.

Poor (0 stars)
Unrated with nudity, profanity, ethnic slurs, animal cruelty, underage drinking, and pervasive crude content.
Running time: 97 minutes
Studio: MGM Video
DVD Extras: Unrated edition includes deleted scenes, gag reel, theatrical trailers, two music videos, "The Making of" and another featurette.

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