Poison Ivy

Alyssa Milano plays Lily, a Good Girl who moves to LA to attend art school and discovers a secret diary belonging to Ivy, from the previous movie. (That plot point alone should warn you that Poison Ivy 2 bears, at best, a distant resemblance to the original, and more's the pity.) Inspired by Ivy's "philosophy" of pushing all boundaries, Lily decides to explore the dark side of herself, which basically boils down to her chasing after a petulant, self-absorbed sculptor (Johnathon Schaech) and in turn being chased by her leacherous, self-absorbed art teacher. The point of movies like Ivy 2 is to have some fun, a few thrills, and we're done, thank you very much. But the filmmakers felt obliged to lard this thing up with ponderous pretension and Artistic Angst. The result is sort of a cross between Bikini Med School and La Notte, with a happy ending tacked on. Bleh. Milano tries her best to inject a little life and humanity into the proceedings, but it's an uphill climb all the way. --Geof Miller