Review of Van Wilder 2: The Rise Of Taj

Introduction

American Pie has a lot to answer for. The teen/college campus sex comedy was dead and buried in the eighties. Films like Porkys had wrung whatever bodily fluids they could out of the genre, and they were best left forgotten. Then along came American Pie, breathing new life into a mouldering corpse, and proving that you could have as much political incorrectness, hormonally challenged teen males dying for sex, topless females, and toilet humour as you wanted, as long as there was an uplifting message at the heart of the film. It worked, and it worked well for American Pie, but it has unleashed a flood of copycat comedies and sequels that have an increasingly tenuous link to a plot, and appear just to serve up the same dose of puerile humour in slightly different clothing. Which brings me to Van Wilder 2: The Rise Of Taj. It may not surprise you to hear that the original film passed me by, but on initial acquaintance VW2 does have something new to offer. It exports the college sex comedy lock, stock and barrel to good old Blighty, as well as the US fraternity system absurdly. Only British fraternities are named after pubs, not randomly slung together letters of the Greek alphabet.

Four years have passed since the first film, and Van Wilder`s sidekick, Taj Mahal Badalandabad (It`s like naming your child Albert Memorial Bigdickcity) has decided to follow his father`s footsteps and do his post-doctorate at England`s prestigious Camford University. Just like his father he aims to be a member of the prestigious Fox and Hounds fraternity, but when he gets there, with faithful bulldog Balzac in tow, the ruling committee of effete toffs summarily ejects him because of a clerical error. Taj winds up as a resident teaching assistant at the Barn, a rundown hall of residence housing the university`s social rejects. He determines to put this group of misfits on the map, and forms his own fraternity, the Cock and Bulls. Soon they are challenging for the intra-college Hastings Cup with a series of bizarre events. Can Taj put the Earl of Grey in his place? You bet he can!

Video

I noticed some compression… in an exterior nighttime scene… on some distant foliage. The 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer is pretty much flawless in every other regard. With a recent film you wouldn`t expect less.

Audio

Just a sole DD 5.1 English track with optional English subtitles. The dialogue is clear, the action is adequately, if unspectacularly conveyed, and the soundtrack offers plenty of pop references suitable for the genre.

Features

There is a 90 second trailer that condenses the movie down. Watch this and you don`t even need to watch the film. The Man Behind Taj lasts six minutes and allows Kal Penn to talk about his character and how he has changed since the first film.

Conclusion

I laughed. God knows I didn`t mean to, and admittedly it wasn`t all that often or even heartily, but heaven help me, Van Wilder 2: The Rise Of Taj entertained me, just a little. There`s something about this film, perhaps it`s the sheer novelty of seeing an Indian character lead a Hollywood movie, perhaps it`s the sheer good-natured energy it puts into its puerile rehash of countless sex comedies gone by, but there is something vaguely attractive about this film, in more ways than just watching a car crash.

It`s akin to a puppy that makes a mess on the carpet, and then looks up at you with soulful eyes. No, actually it`s like when you go to the ape enclosure at the zoo, and there is a chimpanzee there, masturbating furiously so it can greet you with a handful of baby chimp juice in the face. Initially disgusted and horrified, you look with rage at the chimp, only to see an innocent face, and you are urged to forgiveness because of those PG Tips ads from your childhood. Then your stomach turns again, because now you know that whenever you`ll hear the catch phrase "It`s the taste!" you`ll henceforth associate it with a face full of monkey sperm.

There`s no monkey sperm in VW2, there`s dog sperm and lots of it, along with a bulldog with CGI enhanced bollocks that drag the ground. The filmmakers wheel out that trite Hollywood vision of England again, the one that only exists in Southern California, in the mind of a writer poised at his word processor, aided by "Everything I Know About England, I Learned From Higgins Off Magnum PI" at his side. Upper class aristocratic twits rule the roost at Camford University, wielding their status and God given right to govern the rabble with a rapier wit, and a cup of tea (pinkies delicately raised) at the ready. Naturally their status is challenged by the arrival of an American, and Indian at that. But there is redemption for the snobs too, as the girlfriend of the Earl of Grey, Charlotte, catches the eye of Taj, and true love ensues.

Stereotypes abound with Bobbies on the beat, Routemaster buses, and the Houses of Parliament, as the usual shorthand for England. Taj`s group consist of the wimpy nerd, the Irish nutter, the console games geek, and the fake Cockney slut (fake accent, not sluttiness). As per usual for these films, the lowest frat on the ladder challenges the elite to prove themselves, and a contest ensues that allows for all sorts of toilet humour and random breast flashes, light bigotry and homophobia, as well as reigniting the class war. And just to make the bad guy irredeemably bad, they give him the sort of reluctant racism that only comes out to underline his villainy. He`s hardly a poster child for the BNP, and it sounds utterly false for the character. He`s a villain because he thinks he`s superior, because he`s crap in bed, because he needs Viagra to keep it up, we already got that. We don`t need a racist epithet from out of the blue just to underline it.

VW2 recycles the same old jokes, albeit with an Olde English stereotypical veneer. It`s creaky, it`s naff and it`s borderline offensive. Then it cheekily winks at you as if to say, "Yes, we know this is s*** too!" If this glowing endorsement is enough to convince you to purchase, then be aware that this isn`t the unrated cut, or if it is there are some jump cuts, half baked jokes, and misfired punchlines to explain. These films are usually followed within the space of twelve months by a version that is more offensive, has more female flesh, and on the rare occasion is actually funnier. It may be worth waiting.

You know, National Lampoon, who produced this, once made a college campus comedy that was nigh on perfect. Why they insist on trying and failing to match that glory is beyond me. Van Wilder 2: The Rise Of Taj, not good. Animal House, brilliant! Get that instead.