Cruel Intentions 2

Rating

Director

Roger Kumble

Screenplay

Roger Kumble

Length

1h 27m

Starring

Robin Dunne, Sarah Thompson, Keri Lynn Pratt, Amy Adams, Barry Flatman, Mimi Rogers, Teresa Hill, Barclay Hope, Tane McClure, David McIlwraith, Jonathan Potts, Clement Von Franckenstein

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
Love has been the topic of hundreds of films, and each new movie attempts to analyze the depths of human emotion – whether explored shallowly or deeply. Cruel Intentions 2 spends most of its length attempting to be an intelligent, relationship-building film, but then finishes as a tawdry waste of time.

Sebastian Valmont (Robin Dunne) is a high school student with a chequered past. His latest flub is the inclusion of a nude picture of the principal’s wife in the school yearbook. Because of his mishaps and his mother’s enrolment in a drug rehabilitation institution, Sebastian must move in with his newly remarried father and attend a prep school.

There he meets his embittered stepsister, recently elected school president Kathryn (Amy Adams), demure headmaster’s daughter Danielle (Sarah Thompson) and ditzy rich girl Cherie (Keri Lynn Pratt). Sebastian courts Danielle in an effort to win her affection. Kathryn knows of his intentions and plots to stop him from finding true happiness.

Kathryn’s tremendous jealousy of Sebastian begins when he bests her in piano playing and vocabulary. She makes it her goal to ruin him. Her ruining doesn’t end there; she’s also dedicated to giving the virginal Cherie the reputation of a slut. To make matters worse, Sebastian attempts to stave off his sister’s evil plotting by stooping to her level. The only thing this gets him is a chance to ruin everything with a girl he truly likes.

From the minute Kathryn gets involved, the film takes a rather sceptical turn toward mediocrity. Her insatiable bitchiness only muddles the plot and manages to be the film’s eventual undoing. Much of Sebastian and Danielle’s plot line carries deep, intellectual meaning while the sexual portion of the film merely detracts from its perceived goal.

While Dunne, Thompson and Pratt give decent performances; Adams manages to conjure images of Jan Brady if she were both rich and unapologetically snobby. That alone makes the film less bearable, but the true embarrassment is its finale. Just when it starts to win viewers over as an endearing and romantic film, the twist ending destroys this effect. It’s hard to imagine how one five-minute scene could bring down an entire hour-and-a-half film. Unfortunately, the film’s climax leaves the audience with a horrendous feeling of betrayal.

Cruel Intentions 2 masks itself well, managing to hold viewers’ attention throughout with entertaining jokes and the potential for rewarding conclusions. Then, with its sexual delusion and half-formed plot twist, the delicate mosaic crafted through the first hour cracks under the spiked-heel of unimpressively scripted closing scenes.

Review Written

June 5, 2001