Review by Peter Syslo
AMERICAN PSYCHO II: ALL AMERICAN GIRL (2002) is tough to describe. One thing that I can say is that it was quite a tease to link it to the original, because it is nothing like the first film. It is more like a horror film geared towards teenage girls, in a way, and it has the look and feel of the I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE AND WILL ALWAYS NEVER FORGET, ESPECIALLY ON EVERY SECOND TUESDAY, WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER... or whatever they are calling the sequels now. I was just very disappointed in the film; it had a cool premise, but it tried to be a "quirky" tale of murder and it just didn't work for me.
AMERICAN... is directed by Morgan J. Freeman and is written by Alex Sanger and Karen Craig. The film stars Mila Kunis, William Shatner, Geraint Wyn Davies, Robin Dunne, and Lindy Booth.
The movie is about a girl, Rachael (Kunis), who witnessed one of Patrick Bateman's (killer from the first film) murders. Actually, he murdered her babysitter in front of her and then Rachael killed him. Now an adult, Rachael is a university student in forensic psychology and she wishes to become an FBI agent so she can hunt serial killers. However, several obstacles stand in the way of her achievements: fellow students, a libidinous professor, and a meddling psychiatrist. As her goals are continually blocked, she decides to take matters into her own hands and "take out" some of the competition. With every kill, she comes ever so closer to her goal of becoming a teacher's assistant and later, an FBI agent.
From that description, you can get an idea of what the film is like. I thought that the basic premise of murdering a killer, becoming a killer, and wanting to hunt killers was pretty good and plausible. But, after the first ten minutes of the film, where that premise is explained, the film just went downhill. First and foremost, let me talk about the "quirkiness" of the film. I do understand what the creators were attempting to do in this movie; they focused more on a "dark" sense of humor and they wished to show how crazy/psychotic a killer Rachael was because she treated murder in a light, nonchalant way. However, I just felt that the comedy didn’t work and one of the reasons was that the killing/violence was not contrasted well with the humor. The reason that the humor in the first film worked so well was because Bale’s performan ce was pretty frightening – he was cold and brutal throughout the film and hearing him joke with his victims was funny because it was contrasted with the sheer brutality.
Second, in relation to my first criticism, I want to discuss the use of pizzicato strings in a soundtrack to signify a "quirky" sense of humor and "playfulness". I don’t know why it sticks in my mind, but I found that this soundtrack sabotaged the impact of the movie, in a sense. This is the same type of music that is heard in "Desperate Housewives" or "Grey's Anatomy"; it has also been in several films in the past decade (mostly "chick flicks") and there is just something about it that seems forced or contrived. For example, let me describe how a scene with that pizzicato string music sounds:
COUGAR 1: "You what! You slept with him!"
(cue music) doo doo.
COUGAR 2:"Well, slept may not be the most accurate verb..."
(cue music) doo doo doo.
My third main criticism of the film is that the story, except for the basic premise, is just a little difficult to swallow. Again, I know that the point was to be a movie like HEATHERS, but there were just too many holes in the story for it to be realistic. Basically all of the killing was a little "thin" – she would probably get caught, due to her sloppiness and her total disregard for details (Bateman was OCD and it made him a successful serial killer). Rachael had the drive, the grandiose thoughts, and the schizophrenic quality of misinterpreting reality but she lacked the skills and the analytical mind of a serial killer. Everyone was truly misled and manipulated by her, but anyone with a degree of intelligence should have been able to see through her lies (actually, the psychiatrist did). Bateman was a master manipulator; Racha el was just a pretty girl who used her "girliness" to distract people and to get what she wanted.
Cutting to the chase: AMERICAN PSYCHO II: ALL AMERICAN GIRL is nothing like AMERICAN PSYCHO. I was disappointed in the film, even though I felt that it started off with a good premise. Aside from the "quirkiness", the soundtrack, and the story/Rachael, the acting was one more nail in the film’s coffin. I like Mila Kunis (she looks great) but I don’t think that she was a good fit for this part and that has a lot to do with the way Rachael was written (I feel). I also like William Shatner - he is an icon – but, like DeNiro and Nicholson, he is sometimes cast in a role where he is almost doing a parody of himself (he does all of his classic "Shatner-isms" and that also didn’t fit the film). One bright spot was Geraint Wyn Davies, as the psychiatrist. He seemed to be the one who was the most involved in his role; he was the most genuine in the film and he actually helped save it from complete disaster. In a nutshell, the film looked good, the girls looked good (sorry, no nudity), and there were a few interesting moments in the story/characters. But, AMERICAN PSYCHO II is basically a bloodless, passionless, and pretty plain sequel to a really great movie. If you enjoy feminine-geared horror, black-but-tame comedy, or co-ed horror such as the SCREAM or I KNOW WHAT YOU DID films, then you may get a kick out of it. I really tried, but I have to give it a 2/10.