Sometimes you really can judge a book by its cover. "National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj" is a movie we can pretty much review based on its title alone. The "National Lampoon" part means it will be awful, as everything released under that label since "Christmas Vacation" (in 1989!) has totally blown. 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. And "The Rise of Taj" hints that this sequel is focusing on a minor character from the first movie -- another harbinger of doom. (Imagine "Superman II: The Adventures of Jimmy Olsen" or "Toy Story II: The Wrath of Little Bo Peep.")

Sure enough, "The Rise of Taj" is worthless, a completely desperate and mindless exercise in juvenility. I was a little surprised, though, at how lackadaisical it is. It's listless and lethargic. You can usually count on these things to at least be lively and madcap, if not actually entertaining. 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.

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. Van (played by Ryan Reynolds in the original) does not appear in the sequel, but his wisdom is often referred to. Taj is now a grad student at England's Camford University, where he's been made R.A. at a ramshackle residence hall known as the Barn. 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. 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'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. Wouldn't you know it, Pipp's girlfriend, Charlotte (Lauren Cohan), starts to fall for Taj, which makes the rivalry even more fierce. 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!

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. 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. (Answer: more than a dozen, but I lost count.)

I laughed not once during the film. 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. That's the one moment that actually pushes the envelope. The rest of the movie just draws pictures of boobies on the envelope and tries to pass it off as comedy.


THE DVD

This is the "Unrated" edition, but how it differs from the regular R-rated version is not clear. Both films are listed as being 98 minutes long, and without the R-rated version on hand to compare them side-by-side, I can't say whether any additional shots of nudity or other "unrated" material has been switched in. If it has been, it's not much.

The film has an optional Spanish soundtrack as well as English and Spanish subtitles.

VIDEO: Anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer. It looks fine; no apparent blemishes or flaws.

AUDIO:Dolby 5.1 Surround. Solid. The sound of the dog ejaculating all over the room really comes through (as it were).

EXTRAS: There's a fairly decent assortment of extras, though there are no commentaries.

"Union Jack-Offs: The Making of 'The Rise of Taj'" (9:00) is your basic behind-the-scenes doc, with the director, writer, and cast members talking about some of their favorite scenes. It is enlightening to hear the writer, David Drew Gallagher, repeatedly mention doing "homages" to the first one, and each instance is something I'd consider a rip-off, not an homage.

"On Set in Romania: Kal Penn Tours 'The Barn'" (4:43) follows Penn around the set in Bucharest. He looks at the different rooms in the studio and does some shtick with director Mort Nathan. Meh.

Seven brief deleted scenes (7:02 total) contribute nothing, not even any additional nudity (if that's what you were hoping for).

The gag reel (3:28) is nothing special. A few alternate bits of dialogue and some clowning around.

There are two music videos: "Get Steady" by Jonny Lives! and "Heads Will Roll" by Marion Raven. The former features scenes from the movie interspersed with band-related footage, while the latter is unrelated to the film.


IN SUMMARY

Even fans of the first "Van Wilder" film (which does not include me) seemed disappointed by this lackluster sequel. Unless you're a huge fan of the Taj character, there's no reason to even rent it.

(Note: Most of the "movie review" portion of this article comes from the review I wrote when the movie was released theatrically. I have re-watched it in the course of reviewing the DVD, however.)