10 years may have passed, but nothing has changed.
The once sex starved high school kids we were introduced to are now all grown up, living in the rough real world.
When Jim, Oz, Kevin, Finch and Stifler came on the scene in 1999, I was in middle school, and this raunchy, R-Rated, teen comedy had my friends and I in stitches. From the crude humor, to scantily clad women, this was a young kids fantasy.
A few sequels later, it’s now 2012 and we get the American Reunion. The gang is reunited for one more stint in East Great Falls for their 10-year high school reunion.
We of course open up, just like every other American Pie movie with a provocative scene that introduces us to Jim and Michelle, who now have a two year old son. We see Kevin as a stay-at-home husband, Oz is a rich T.V. sports talk show host, Finch is M.I.A., and Stifler is slumming it in a corporate office.
After the re-introduction, the guys say they need to unwind before the reunion, a guys weekend, where they would live it up, “just like old times.” Throw in an 18-year-old hot for Jim, the new band of misfits terrorizing the old core, a Stifler party, Jim’s dad getting hammered and tons more, and we get a reunion.
And while that all sounds like a great weekend, lets pump the breaks.
What was the major complaint The Hangover Part 2 received? That it followed the same exact formula as the first one, thus lacking creativity and originality. American Reunion suffers from the same disease.
It’s rather annoying to see a film retrace it’s steps for four straight movies. The reason some may not have noticed was the major gap between American Wedding and American Reunion. While the jokes may be slightly different, the concept is still the same, the writers never stray the course, and it seems like they never “get with the times.”
What I mean by that is, being that it’s 10 years later, I expect the jokes to be a little more audience appropriate, and current. It felt like I was still watching American Pie 2, If I wanted to that, I’d fire up my dvd player.
As the story goes on, old couples like Vickie and Kevin bump into each other and catch up, as do Oz and “choir chick” Heather who has a new doctor boyfriend with her.
We are also introduced to Dania Ramirez who plays Selena, a fat girl in high school that only Finch was nice to. So of course they hit it off; we’re also introduced to Ali Cobrin who plays Kara, the girl Jim use to babysit who is now 18.
And even with those two new additions and the story lines they present, it still doesn’t feel like anything new or original.
When it comes to comedies I always stress consistency as being the most important factor, if you can’t keep your audience laughing throughout, while at the same time building your story and characters, you’re going to fail. There weren’t any major laughs for me, the type you laugh so loud that you miss parts of dialogue, which I guess is hard to expect, but this is American Pie!! you have to deliver. That being said there were laughs don’t get me wrong, Jim, Finch and of course Stifler have their fare share of solid moments, but they aren’t quote worthy or lines I’ll be thinking about and laughing at later on.
I think American Reunion came a little too late, if this film was released four to six years ago it would have been funnier and probably hit closer to home.
Yes it’s a trip down memory lane for a ton of us who “grew up” with this cast, and it’s nice and nostalgic, but when it comes down to it the Reunion didn’t deliver enough laughs, or a interesting enough story line to be on par with the first two.
Rating: 5/10
Theater of The Mind 