Review
by Bob Ignizio
Back
in the eighties when the teen sex comedy first came into prominence,
if you were going to make a sequel to one of these things, you
basically just made the same movie over again. And you damn sure
didn't let much time pass between your films (perfect example:
PORKY'S II: THE NEXT DAY).
The idea that you would actually follow your hormone crazed
protagonists as they grow and mature through the course of 4 films
over the span of 13 years would be unfathomable, but that's what the
AMERICAN PIE series
has done. And for the most part, it's done it surprisingly well.
AMERICAN REUNION
is the latest installment in the franchise to get a theatrical
release (there have been 4 direct to video sequels since 2003's
AMERICAN WEDDING as
well), revisiting the main characters from the first film in their
early thirties. Jim (Jason Biggs) is still married to Michelle
(Allison Hannigan), but they've had a hard time adjusting to
parenthood. Oz (Chris Klein) is a successful sportscaster with a
supermodel girlfriend, but the all the success can't make up for the
emptiness of his life. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is a house husband
and stay at home dad who misses spending time with the guys, Finch
(Eddie Kaye Thomas) has apparently become an international man of
mystery and adventure, and Stiffler (Seann William Scott) hasn't
really changed much, which hasn't exactly proven helpful in his
attempts to climb the corporate ladder. Everyone comes back to their
hometown for their 13th high school reunion, and as soon as the guys
get together, the expected comedic misadventures ensue.
Although
series creator Adam Herz, who wrote the first three films, is not
involved in this latest installment, co-writers/directors Jon Hurwitz
and Hayden Schlossberg (the HAROLD AND KUMAR
series) do a good job of maintaining the tone and spirit of the
franchise. The one thing that always made the AMERICAN PIE
movies stand out was the genuinely well written characters and
undercurrent of real emotion that runs through them. And while all
the movies have their share of T&A, it's always been the guys who
bear the brunt of the humiliation, a tradition which continues here
in a scene where Biggs does his impression of pheasant under glass.
I
don't think anyone would go into AMERICAN REUNION
expecting a great film, and it's not. The freshness of the premise is
long gone, and pretty much any given comedy these days out-raunches
anything in the AMERICAN PIE
oeuvre. But if you're like me and you've watched and enjoyed the
other films in the series, you kind of care about these characters
and want to see what happens to them, and on that front the film
delivers. It also delivers a fair number of laughs, and as odd as it
may seem to say this about a movie where a character takes a dump in
a cooler full of beer, it does so in an appropriately more mature
manner. Sure, it's kind of unnecessary and disposable, but I still
enjoyed it. 3 out of 4 stars.
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