copyright 1998 nathaniel r . atcheson when i first saw the preview for cruel intentions , i turned to my friend and said , " dangerous liaisons for kids ! " it was clear to me that the film would be an obvious chunk of plagiarized nonsense , owing everything it is to stephen frears' 1988 masterpiece . imagine my surprise to see that writer/director roger kumble has given credit to his source material : choderlos de laclos is recognized for his novel les liaisons dangereuses in the opening credits . and i was impressed . in fact , i was much more impressed with this recognition than with the actual film , which is an appalling excuse for a movie . it's kiddie-porn hackwork , complete with earthy sex-talk and fully-clothed hand-jobs . i suppose this kind of movie was inevitable ; with all the teen high-school angst movies coming out , there was certainly room for a pretentious and laughable movie about a bunch of teenagers who think they're smarter and more beautiful than all the other people on earth combined . cruel intentions is a mess in every possible way , and it fails primarily in the way i expected it to : i hated all the characters , and i hate everything they do . i also hate ryan phillippe , so perhaps my opinion is not as objective as it could be . phillippe plays ( check out this name ) sebastian valmont . wow . isn't that a memorable name ? i could just say it over and over again . sebastian valmont . it kind of rolls off the tongue , in the spirit of phrases like sanguine vapors and velvet sandwich . sebastian valmont is the coolest guy who ever walked the earth ; there is no woman he can't have , no material object out of his reach . he has all the money , all the sex -- all at his fingertips . and , luckily , his parents never enter into his life -- no , in the world of cruel intentions , adults don't really exist . the ones who do are irritating . sebastian valmont lives with his stepsister , kathryn merteuil ( sarah michelle gellar ) , the bitch-queen of the universe , and also the woman every man wants . since these two rich kids are so bored , they only thing they can do is challenge each other with meaningless sexual liaisons . kathryn wants sebastian valmont to de-virginize cecile caldwell ( selma blair ) , a naive dork-chick who has somehow wronged kathryn . but it's too easy for sebastian valmont -- he wants to nail annette hargrove ( reese witherspoon ) , the " paradigm of chastity and beauty . " so , sebastian valmont and kathryn make a deal ( which is too explicit to state here ) . but -- dear god ! -- sebastian valmont actually begins to fall for poor annette hargrove . dangerous liaisons is a great movie because the characters are all believable , and because of its masterful acting . cruel intentions is bad for many reasons , but it lacks both believable characters and masterful acting . kathryn merteuil is simply a hateful witch , a girl so loathsome that i would probably enjoy pouring hot lead on her . she is supposed to be mean , but glenn close gave the character some depth in dangerous liaisons . gellar , while aesthetically pleasing , is one-dimensional and utterly repulsive . witherspoon has a truly beautiful face , but her character isn't the moral staple she's supposed to be : sure , she won't have sex until she's in love ( is this really a * moral * issue ? ) , but she does some things in the last few scenes that are more than a little reprehensible . but i can't forget mr . phillippe , who continues to exceed my expectations with his impenetrable , invulnerable blandness . i have to give him credit and say that he did , in fact , manage to change his facial expression about three times during the course of cruel intentions . and there's one point in the film in which he shouts , thereby defeating my hypothesis that he is vocally monotone . true , he is bad , but it doesn't help that he has no character to work with . kumble has drained all the interesting aspects from this character , leaving us with a sex-crazed lunatic who is supposed to be sympathetic because he falls in love with a moral flower and shuns the wicked bitch . the film fails in every other way , too . first of all , nobody talks like this . even the " intellectuals " i know don't bother with this kind of pointless and pretentious yammering . for a while , the movie looks like it might play itself for laughs , but it ends up taking itself so seriously that there's no way we can join it . cruel intentions also manages to come off as soft-porn in more than one scene . earlier i mentioned a fully-clothed hand-job ; this occurs between kathryn and sebastian valmont , both of whom are intended to be hateful at this point in the movie . so , if we hate them , then what's the point of an extended sex scene ? titillation , of course . it can't even work under the pretense of " meaningful love scene , " because we hate the characters . it's interesting to note some of the parallels between cruel intentions and dangerous liaisons . kumble is clearly familiar with the earlier film ; many of the scenes have a similar tone , and there are moments in frears' film that kumble imitates almost completely ( such as the last scene , in which [spoiler warning ! ] the antagonist is humiliated in front of her peers ) . but kids don't act like this . nobody acts like this . in his translation , roger kumble forgot character development and sympathy -- some pretty crucial elements . the result is a picture of confounding badness , a kiddie-porn mess that thinks it's really deep and profound . i'll give cruel intentions credit for realizing its influences , but that doesn't change the fact that it's awful . 
