director
Morgan J. Freeman
screenwriters
Karen Craig
Alex Sanger
producer
Ernie Barbarash
cinematographer
Vanja Cernjul
music
Norman Orenstein
editor
Mark Sanders
cast
Mila Kunis (Rachael Newman)
William Shatner (Professor Starkman)
Geraint Wyn Davies (Eric Daniels)
Robin Dunne (Brian Leads)
Lindy Booth (Cassandra Blaire)
Charles Officer (Keith Lawson)
Jenna Perry (Young Rachael)
Michael Kremko (Patrick Bateman)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 88m
u.s.
release: 6/18/02
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
q&a
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An execrable, in-name-only
"sequel" to the excellent 2000 adaptation
of Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel.
And what
did Bret have to say about this "sequel"?
"If they're not careful,"
he sighed when the project was first announced, "they could
end up with something like the Pink Panther movies."
Besides, Ellis had already written his own follow-up --
an "email show" to coincide with the first film's release.
Curious parties may go here to read the archived AmPsych2000.
It's pretty interesting for fans of the original book/movie --
it includes Patrick Bateman's email therapy sessions, and ends
with Bateman watching a prankishly recognizable in-flight movie.
And I'll
bet Ellis' follow-up kicks the shit out of this one.
American Psycho 2 wasn't even supposed to be an American
Psycho sequel, for Christ's sake! Lions Gate noticed
that the first film got critical acclaim and didn't do too poorly
in theaters, so they dusted off an unrelated script and modified
it to link it (tenuously) to the first film. Thus, a story about
Rachael (Mila Kunis), a homicidally driven college student who
eliminates her competition for a coveted teaching-assistant spot,
now begins with a flashback to her childhood run-in with Patrick
Bateman (played here by somebody named Michael Kremko, in a blue
face-mask). As many commentators have pointed out, this neatly
invalidates the reading of the original film's being mostly the
diseased fantasy of one P. Bateman, and not reality. Here, he
is a killer and he does slice up Rachael's babysitter
and Rachael does (improbably) end his reign of terror.
So Ellis' unforgettable creation is rewarded by being ice-picked
by an adolescent girl. Terrific.
What did
Morgan J. Freeman -- unrelated to the great actor, but the former
indie director of Hurricane Streets and Desert Blue
-- have to say about his involvement with this cinematic abortion?
Plenty of stupid stuff, as
told to Sarah Kendzior in Fangoria #212. Among Freeman's
more inane remarks showing that he really didn't understand
Mary Harron's film:
- "I didn't hate the first
movie, but I didn't like it. It bugged the shit out of me, the
way it drowned itself in '80s pop culture."
- "I didn't see how the
first movie was a feminist movie. It just seemed like it was
Bateman's wet dream."
- "I think the people
who really like the [first] movie seem to be those guys who are
really into the fonts on their business cards."
- On Ellis' comments on the
"sequel": "If Ellis is drunk at parties and talks
shit, that's fine....But if I could fight him, I'd love to kick
his ass."
- On his own movie: "It's
not, like, a satire of American culture, and it's not going to
be a commentary on psychosis or anything. This is about a hot,
sexy superhero who's sort of the anti-Clarice Starling."
Sounds like
he didn't really want to make a sequel at all.
He didn't. Freeman was actually
as exasperated as anyone that Lions Gate marketed this as a sequel
instead of as its own movie. Still, he didn't have to bash a
markedly superior film in order to talk up his own film, and
if he was going to play all holier-than-thou, it would've been
nice if his film were any good either as a sequel or as its own
movie.
Do you have
any room left to discuss the movie?
I have all the room I want,
it's my website. Consciously cast against type, Mila Kunis (of
That '70s Show) comes off merely bratty and annoying.
The only other readily recognizable name in the cast, William
Shatner, embarrasses himself mightily as the professor whose
approval Rachael seeks. For a while, the movie toys with the
possibility that someone else is the killer, but then the script
just matter-of-factly shows Rachael going to work on her next
victim. The movie is neither frightening nor funny; in fact,
it's extremely boring -- even considering its 88-minute length,
I still had to get up for two or three pause breaks just to get
through the damn thing. Ironically, when I first heard about
this project, I thought, "This could either be terrible
or brilliant." A distaff American Psycho -- if written
and acted as sharply and perceptively as the original, it could
rock the house. Unfortunately, this is quite literally just a
slasher movie with the unearned American Psycho label
slapped onto it to move more units.
Think there'll
be an American Psycho 3?
Christ, I hope not. What are
they gonna do next, take a dusty old script about a schoolteacher
working with deaf Harlem kids and work Patrick Bateman into that
film's backstory somehow?
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