Movie Review ‘American Reunion’

By Bob Garver

Watch­ing “Amer­i­can Reunion”, it occurred to me how sim­i­lar the “Amer­i­can Pie” series is to the “Final Des­ti­na­tion” series. The “Amer­i­can Pie” series is a scat­o­log­i­cal com­edy fran­chise known for con­vo­luted sequences where every­thing seems to go wrong at once and the char­ac­ters end up humil­i­ated. The “Final Des­ti­na­tion” series is a hor­ror fran­chise known for con­vo­luted sequences where every­thing seems to go wrong at once and the char­ac­ters end up dead. Both fran­chises are over a decade old and still com­ing out with new install­ments. The films of both are about two-thirds filler while we wait for the Really Good Parts. And both make me laugh like a sicko when they do get to the Really Good Parts.

“Amer­i­can Reunion” is the fourth install­ment of “Amer­i­can Pie” to be released in the­aters with the main cast (four direct-to-DVD “Amer­i­can Pie Presents” sequels are related in name only). It has been nine years since 2003’s “Amer­i­can Wed­ding” and everybody’s back in town for a belated high school reunion. Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Han­ni­gan) are still mar­ried and now have a kid, but they seem to be grow­ing apart lately. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is hav­ing doubts about his mar­riage and is tempted to get back with his ex-girlfriend Vicky (Tara Reid). Oz (Chris Klein) is tired of his shal­low lifestyle and longs to get back with his ex-girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari), who is now dat­ing a jerk doc­tor. Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) has sud­denly reap­peared after a long absence with an excit­ing account of the past few years. Sti­fler (Seann William Scott) is still Sti­fler, a per­pet­ual man-child who lives an unsuc­cess­ful life as a temp. He seemed to be doing pretty well as a high school foot­ball coach in “Amer­i­can Wed­ding”, one can only guess what he did to lose that job in the meantime.

As with the rest of the films, the action mostly cen­ters around Jim. He earnestly tries to reignite the pas­sion in his mar­riage to Michelle, but every­thing and every­body else is always get­ting in the way. He han­dles it in the tra­di­tional Jim way, which is to say hor­ri­bly. The scari­est obsta­cle involves Kara (Abi Cobrin), a neigh­bor girl he used to babysit who is now 18. She appar­ently always had a crush on him, and although he doesn’t take her advances seri­ously, every­one else does. The poten­tial for humil­i­a­tion grows and grows until pos­si­ble con­se­quences include divorce, arrest, and beatings.

The sto­ry­lines for Kevin, Finch, Oz, and Sti­fler all scream “filler”. The only sub­plot that makes an impact is one that fea­tures Jim’s Dad (Eugene Levy). Once again, he offers his son awk­ward advice on sub­jects that chil­dren don’t like to dis­cuss with their par­ents. But this time, he needs some help him­self. His wife died a few years ago and he’s been feel­ing lonely. Jim makes a project of get­ting him back into the dat­ing scene. He even­tu­ally falls for Stifler’s Mom (Jen­nifer Coolidge), sub­ject of an obscene acronym from the orig­i­nal movie that has since become sur­pris­ingly com­mon­place in Amer­i­can soci­ety. Levy fills the role with just the right com­bi­na­tion of humor, dis­com­fort, sym­pa­thy, and yes, even wis­dom to make it an excep­tional comedic performance.

The char­ac­ters in “Amer­i­can Reunion” may have evolved from “Amer­i­can Pie”, but the humor hasn’t. It’s still of the imma­ture sex-and-bathroom vari­ety. As for the char­ac­ters evolv­ing, who cares? You saw how I glossed over most of them in the last para­graph, I guar­an­tee most view­ers gloss over them in the same way. Plus the film tries to cram even more famil­iar faces on screen as if the audi­ence is going through a check­list. Okay I was, but the major­ity of the audi­ence won’t be. “Amer­i­can Reunion” thinks that peo­ple remem­ber “Amer­i­can Pie” for its over­all story when in fact peo­ple remem­ber it for a few dis­gust­ing scenes a.k.a. the Really Good Parts.

Two and a Half Stars out of Five.

“Amer­i­can Reunion” is rated R for crude and sex­ual con­tent through­out, nudity, lan­guage, brief drug use, and teen drink­ing. Its run­ning time is 113 minutes.

Con­tact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.

Posted by Bob Garver on Apr 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.