Beyond the passable acting, there is little to recommend in Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation, which takes its name from the 1984 Tom Hanks vehicle. The uneven, low-brow script (with a fair amount of improvisation, according to first-time director/writer James Ryan) is predictable and not as humorous as it would like to be. Not that this is much of a surprise.
The original was far from top-notch, yet the producers steal the name from the 1984 film, even though it is in no way a sequel. There are no actors in the second movie from the original, the characters are not meant to be associated with those from the earlier film, nor is the plot tied to the first movie in any substantial manner; that is, not beyond the fact that they both revolve around bachelor parties.
One wonders at the wisdom of co-opting the name in any event, as the original was not of a caliber worth repeating, nor was it a film so well-received that one would think there was value with which to associate it. According to the 10-minute long feature included on the “unrated” advance DVD copy (the movie will be coming direct-to-DVD March 11), Ron Moler, one of the producers of the first film, has been hanging on to this little gem of a property for just the right pitch, before giving his consent to green light a so-called sequel. Moler explains to potential viewers, “I’ve heard dozens and dozens and dozens of pitches over the years. Many of the ideas just wanted to be very derivative of the original, and that’s where the problem was.”
Director Ryan says, “Basically, they were looking for someone who had a take not only on directing it, but on doing a rewrite. I had pitched some ideas and one of the ideas was the SAA cocktail party. [Two characters] stumble into this party not realizing it is a sex addicts’ convention, and they assume it is a sales meeting, and it gets into a double entendre thing. So they asked me, ‘Do you think you could write that?’ So, over the course of the next couple of days I wrote pretty much close to what the scene is now, and they liked it, and we had another meeting and I was hired.”
The line between soft-core pornography and bad B-movies is getting very thin these days. Although most of the lead actors manage to keep most of their clothes on, there is so much nudity among the supporting cast and extras that this film would have had to be chopped up pretty good in order to be released in theaters. Some of the actors in the movie, like Josh Cooke (perhaps known from such failed television series as Big Day and Four Kings in 2006, as well as Committed in 2005), Sara Foster (known from movies like Psych: 9 in 2007, as well as The Big Bounce and the lead in D.E.B.S. in 2004) and Emmanuelle Vaugier (who plays Det. Jessica Angell on CSI: NY, and is often remembered for recurring roles like Mia on Two and a Half Men and Dr. Helen Bryce on Smallville) are talented, but sadly, may suffer damage to their careers if they continue to wallow in this sort of filth. One can only hope they wise up and choose future work that will allow them, someday, to look back with pride.