Starring Kal Penn and Lauren Cohan. Rated 14A.

As a comic actor, young Kal Penn has quite a few things going for him. But he can’t do an Indian accent. And that’s a drag, because the New Jersey native—so drolly American in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle—is required to struggle with lame immigrant-speak throughout the dragged-out 95 minutes of nonhumour that are Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj.

It’s easy to understand why the producers would want to milk the previous VW for more moola, but connections with the 2002 hit are so spurious, you’d think they would simply fashion a vehicle for Penn and give that the old college try. Instead, they (and Penn himself, as an executive producer) limply try to flesh out the legend of Taj Mahal Badalandabad, a side character in the original film, which starred Ryan Reynolds (here glimpsed in the form of a single photograph).

VW 2’s thrown-together plot has grad student Taj cutting an implausible swath through the stuffy halls of an Oxford-like university in the U.K. After getting tossed out of the toffee-nosed frat house he pledged, he ends up with the usual band of misfits, whom he single-handedly transforms into winners, et cetera.

He also finds a worthwhile love interest in the form of his beautiful advisor (Lauren Cohan), even if she does happen to be engaged to his campus nemesis. Fortunately, this deranged aristocrat is played by newcomer Daniel Percival with enough narcissistic glee to give the indifferently shot movie a small charge now and again. Well, almost.

In any case, it does feature a bull mastiff with very large testicles. And the dog’s accent is perfect.