He’s relegated to “The Barn ” the campus loser dwelling and vows to turn its misfits into winners so he can not only get back at Pipp but also to steal his girlfriend Charlotte ( Lauren Cohan). He arrives on campus thinking he’s been accepted to an elite fraternity only to be derisively turned down by uptight and arrogant Pipp ( Daniel Percival). Taj Mahal Badalandabad ( Kal Penn) has moved on from being Van’s beleaguered bumbling assistant and is now off to England’s prestigious Camford University to continue his education. Ah but the title of the latest National Lampoon installment is still the movie’s most intelligible facet. R, a few scenes of nudity, some strong sexuality, abundant vulgarity and profanity.National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj shares something in common with another recent equally unnecessary sequel Big Momma’s House 2: Its title is an absolute misnomer since Van Wilder ( Ryan Reynolds) is nowhere to be seen in his own sequel–just like Big Momma’s house in its sequel.
National lampoon van wilder the rise of taj movie#
The rest of the movie just draws pictures of boobies on the envelope and tries to pass it off as comedy. That’s the one moment that actually pushes the envelope. I may have winced audibly once or twice, though, particularly during the scene (ripped off from the first “Van Wilder”) in which a dog’s sexual behavior is graphically depicted. (Answer: more than a dozen, but I lost count.) He did not write “The Rise of Taj,” however those honors went to one Drew David Gallagher, a sometime-actor with no previous writing experience who evidently penned this screenplay as part of a contest to see how many euphemisms he could think of for female genitalia. The film was directed by Mort Nathan, a hack writer whose only prior directing credit was - shudder - “Boat Trip.” Surely no person who endured that disaster can enter “The Rise of Taj” without trepidation. And wouldn’t you know it, Taj has a few tricks up his sleeve to cut those pompous Fox & Hound twits down to size!! Ha-ha! Wouldn’t you know it, Pipp’s girlfriend, Charlotte (Lauren Cohan), starts to fall for Taj, which makes the rivalry even more fierce. There’s a snooty fraternity called the Fox & Hounds, led by smarmy jerk Pipp Everett (Daniel Percival), and they intend to humiliate Taj’s house in the school-wide Hastings Cup competition. They are all desperately in need of help in becoming cool and confident, so it’s Van Wilder to the rescue! Er, Van Wilder, as learned and now repeated by Taj! There are just four students under his tutelage: Seamus (Glen Barry) the angry Irish kid, Gethin (Anthony Cozens) the nerd, Simon (Steven Rathman) the silent video-gamer, and Sadie (Holly Davidson) the cockney tramp. at a ramshackle residence hall known as the Barn. Taj is now a grad student at England’s Camford University, where he’s been made R.A. Van (played by Ryan Reynolds in the original) does not appear in the sequel, but his wisdom is often referred to. Taj (Kal Penn), an Indian-American student, was a protege of supreme slacker Van Wilder back at Coolidge College in the first “Van Wilder” film. But this one goes for long stretches without even TRYING to be funny, apparently content to let its half-baked characters wander around unsupervised while the audience waits impatiently for the next sperm joke. You can usually count on these things to at least be lively and madcap, if not actually entertaining. I was a little surprised, though, at how lackadaisical it is. Sure enough, “The Rise of Taj” is worthless, a completely desperate and mindless exercise in juvenility.
(Imagine “Superman II: The Adventures of Jimmy Olsen” or “Toy Story II: The Wrath of Little Bo Peep.”)
And “The Rise of Taj” hints that this sequel is focusing on a minor character from the first movie - another harbinger of doom. The fact that it’s a sequel to 2002’s “Van Wilder” is another gloomy sign, since sequels to bad movies are usually just as bad, if not worse.
The “National Lampoon” part means it will be awful, as everything released under that label since “Christmas Vacation” (in 1989!) has totally blown. “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj” is a movie we can pretty much review based on its title alone. Sometimes you really can judge a book by its cover.
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