Cruel Intentions 2 Movie Review

So here's the story. Cruel Intentions was a moderate success in the theaters back in 1999, so they figured they'd turn it into a TV show. Intended as a prequel to the film, it would be called Manchester Prep, tracing the early strife between Kathryn and Sebastian. Manchester Prep turned out to be so bad they cancelled it before a single episode ever aired.

So what do you do with all that footage? Release it as a movie!

It's easy to see why they cancelled the show. Cruel Intentions 2 is not good. I thought the original was a snarky, guilty pleasure, but the second coming is barely even fit for UPN. Supplementing a pilot episode with some extra profanity, more sexual innuendo, and a pair of nude twins in a shower, you quickly learn that replacement stars Amy Adams, Robin Dunne, and Sarah Thompson are not equal to Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Reese Witherspoon from the original. Though the plot is virtually identical to Cruel Intentions (notable exception: Sebastian (Dunne) is legitimately trying to straighten up from his naughty ways), there's not much here to make you think Manchester Prep had been intended as a drama instead of a comedy.

Painfully miscast is Amy Adams (the slut cheerleader from Drop Dead Gorgeous), who has none of the grace and style of Gellar in the role of Kathryn. She's laughable whenever she's on screen, and as the leading role, that's most of the time. Dunne and Thompson (as the goody-goody girl he's after this time) are just fine, but they hardly make up the difference. And oddly enough, Roger Kumble wrote and directed this follow-up as well as the original. It's amazing he couldn't have come up with something a little more compelling.

Aka Cruel Intentions II.