Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj 2006

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: Britain and India face off in National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj, a strained attempt to transplant the American campus comedy to more uptight shores. Read more

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: In this sequel to the 2002 campus comedy, Kal Penn spends much of the running time acting like Wilder I star Ryan Reynolds, which no actor with half a brain should be doing. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Granted, it's still ****, but with a sweeter odor than usual. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: Penn is capable of so much more. Read more

Rocco B. Colella, Boston Globe: The Rise of Taj is relatively pointless in the scheme of things, but refreshing in what it (mostly) doesn't resort to for laughs. Read more

Michael Ordona, Los Angeles Times: The film's incompetence is not limited to the writing, acting and directing. There are jarring jump cuts and continuity errors, and a laugh-out-loud eyeline mishap during a supposedly intimate conversation. One keeps expecting a boom mike to peek out. Read more

Reece Pendleton, Chicago Reader: This is shocking only for its tepidness; except for some raunchy language, it's ready-made for basic cable. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Everything old is old again in this rickety extension of 2002's already rickety Van Wilder. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: It's hard to fathom why this didn't go straight to video, or maybe even YouTube. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Taj plays like a very bad combination of Revenge of the Nerds and Harry Potter. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: The Rise of Taj never rises to the level of time-killer. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: As the movie itself is only occasionally entertaining, I invented my own competition: picking scenes from other movies that the Van Wilder 2 screenwriters ripped off because they didn't have any of their own ideas. Read more

Jason Anderson, Globe and Mail: Van Wilder 2's sense of numbing familiarity is not enhanced by director Mort Nathan's apparent unfamiliarity with the entire filmmaking process. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Crikey, it's enough to give even stupid comedy a bad name. Read more

Stephen Garrett, Time Out: National Lampoon recycles countless collegiate comedies for this spin-off sequel. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: This is the sort of film that thinks calling a beer a 'libation' is a form of wit. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: The four-years-in-the-making, badly recycled (not to mention awful) sequel might stain the honor of the Lampoon label if it hadn't already produced several even worse films. Read more