American Reunion

In 1999 Universal Pictures released 'American Pie', a film that reinvigorated and reinvented the teen-sex-comedy genre. Two cinema sequels followed and then a few direct-to-DVD spin offs. Now it returns to the big screen.

'American Pie' was one of the few times that film makers managed to take a genre which can so easily be done badly and make something great. In most of this style of films the guys and their behaviour comes off as very sleazy and unappealing. However writer Adam Herz had created a film which was populated by characters you come to care about and believe in. You want them to succeed in loosing their virginity. Not something that many people would route for. The film also presented women in a more positive light. Previously they were only seen as objects of lust and desire. And while there is a little of that in the film, most of the women still come off as characters you care about. The sequels still kept much of that tone but to a lesser extent.

So with the law of diminishing returns this sequel is not as good as the original. There is something to be said for seeing familiar characters again and seeing what is happening in their lives since we last saw them. That was one of the positive elements of the film is catching up with 'friends'. It was fun to meet them all again. However what they get up to is not as good. I think writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg have not been able to come up with interesting plots for these characters to go though. It is fairly typical and cliched stuff that you expect to see. That might be appealing to a certain extent but you want more for these characters that you have come to love. I will say that there are some funny moments but not enough to sustain the the rather lengthy run time. Also despite there being some crude moments I think the rude elements have been muted here. Perhaps the many copycats that followed the original film have set the bar so high that this film fails to live up to it.

The cast here have not done that much since the release of the last film, so they must have been quite pleased to return. Jason Biggs and Sean William Scott manage to get the best of what the film has to offer. Jim's story gives something for Jason to work with and he proves how delightful an actor he can be. Sean has the wonderful character of Stiffler to play so he gets to go wild once again. In some ways his antics are wearing a bit thin but he has a nice character arc which Sean does a wonderful job with. Eddie Kaye Thomas gets a nice romantic plot with a fellow nerd. However Chris Klein and Thomas Ian Nicholas get very ordinary plots of them trying to get back with former girlfriends. Chris's performance on a dancing show is though very amusing. As mentioned above the girls were nicely drawn characters in the original film. But this time they are stuck in the background and don't have all that much to work with. Allyson Hannigan playing the wife of Jason's character gets a chance to work more of her performance but it is still just the annoying wife role. Eugene Levy is hilarious as always.

While there is a pleasure in seeing this group of friends back together, you wish that they could have had a more substantial return.