almostgrown

To understand how this film came to be, you first should know the backstory. In 1999, Fox bought a pilot TV show called Manchester Prep, a "reimagined" prequel to the film Cruel Intentions. It had all the same characters as the film and spread a fairly similar plot over the 22 episode arc. The film's producing and directing team oversaw creation of the TV show and production began. '99 was a decent year for TV and one of the gems was a show called Popular. Popular turned out to be....well, popular and Manchester Prep was canceled before it ever aired it's pilot. The first few episodes were already shot, so it was repackaged with a few re-shoots and rewrites (and some gratuitous nudity) into the form of Cruel Intentions 2.

The tonal changes throughout the film and different stylistic changes that plague the film are due to the segments of the TV episodes having been shot by different directors and then roughly tied together with reshoots by another director for the movie version. The film takes on a "pulp" feel as it plays on the inside jokes from the original film (which was designed to set up a connection between the show and the film as time progressed) and panders to the innuendos of the film in the lowest exploitative ways possible.

If you look hard enough you will find its connection to the first film, however viewing Cruel Intentions 2 before the original will likely dissuade you from viewing the original as this one lacks the sophistication and charisma of the original.