I know I did a comic about Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj last week, but that comic was all about the anticipation while today’s comic is all about the aftermath.

Yes, it’s true. Cami and I went to see Van Wilder 2 this weekend. I don’t really have an excuse except to say that I’ve always secretly enjoyed the first movie and I spent all day Saturday hanging up window blinds in our house. I was in the movie for something stupid that I didn’t have to invest that much into intellectually.

Well, on that front, Van Wilder 2 delivers by the bucketload.

From the movie’s most improbible opening sequence all the way to it’s uninspired end, Van Wilder 2 delivers a level of stupidity not entertaining, but embarassing. You feel bad for nearly every actor involved. Not because the script is written in such a way that comedic tragedies befall them at every turn but because there is nearly no way for them to wipe this stain off of their resumes.

I used to think Kal Penn was a farily charismatic and likable actor. I was actually upset that he was cast as Lex Luthor’s assistant but given no lines in Superman Returns. After watching him in Van Wilder 2, I’ve pretty much written him off. His performance is lazy and uninspired. He apparently took no notes from Ryan Reynolds in the first Van Wilder. His winking, spry performance is what took an otherwise tepid movie and made it fun. Most insulting was Penn’s accent. I realize that he was neither born or raised in India, but his accent is as woefully inconsistent as the rest of the movie.

Van Wilder 2 is a complete retred of the original. Only the location has changed. Like Van Wilder before him, Taj has his own English bulldog with swollen testicles. There is a horny older woman who tries to put the moves on him. He swoons over a woman who – of course – hates him at first and is dating the film’s villian. Once the woman begins to warm up to Taj’s winning personality, the same upper-crust stereotype employs a willing female accomplis to blackmail our hero. After being expelled, then re-enstated after a confrontation that ends in extreme embarassment for the villian, Taj gets the girl and lives happily ever after. Throw in a few lame jokes about the British empire’s brutal occupation of India, and you have your sequel.

I know I shouldn’t be this upset. I knew going in that the movie would be trash. But when your expectations are already at basement-level and the film STILL manages to dissapoint, you have the right to be a little angry.

The funniest thing about Cami and I seeing this movie was the conversation we had with her parents the day before. They had asked us if we had gone to see Bobby yet. Because they’re from that era, they’re very much invested into the concept of the film and want us to see it so we can talk about it with them. We told them that we hadn’t seen the film but we were thinking about it and agreed it looked really good. We planned on seeing it, we just didn’t know when.

Then, the moment we have a free evening, we turn around and see Van WIlder 2. What a letdown we must be to her folks! Oh, well!

At any rate, I’ll have a lot more to say about Van Wilder 2, as well as this weekend’s box office tally and this weekend’s new releases on my very first talkcast. You guys should check it out! It’s being hosted by TalkShoe and you can either listen in, send me text-messages in a chat room or "call-in" to my broadcast and talk to me directly. Tonight’s show is going to be really loose and off the cuff as I get my bearings around the TalkShoe technology. If a lot of you call in, I plan on keeping the lines of communication open for you to talk to me. The show is at 10:00 CST tonight, so be sure to download both the TalkShoe application and a copy of Skype and then log on to this page about 15 minutes before hand so you’re on the line when we hit the airwaves.

I hope I see you there tonight!