Tell me a story

Viewed on January 18, 2013 on HBO On Demand

This is the fourth film in the American Pie franchise (the eighth film if you count the four straight to DVD spin-offs), and it’s pretty much what I expected it to be: callbacks to earlier moments in the franchise, crude jokes, embarrassing sexual situations, the Stiffmeister, and an ending where Jim, Oz, Kevin, Finch, and Stiffler all learn an important life lesson. That has pretty much been the formula for these movies, and while I enjoyed it in the first film, with each sequel I’ve grown less and less interested and amused.

I was a teen in high school when the first American Pie came out in ’99, and it was easy to relate to these five sex-crazed dudes. I’ve been aging at the same rate as the characters, so I feel like I should still relate to them with each new film, but at some point their lives became too silly to be believable or identified with. Though the writers do aim for character growth, the focus is still mostly on the farces the guys find themselves in. Now that could still end up being pretty entertaining, but fourteen years have passed since we first saw Jim bang a pie. The audience has seen a lot of wild things since then (including Killer Joe). It’s much harder to shock us now. In this sequel Stiffler takes a dump in a cooler. Gross? Yes. Shocking? No. Bridesmaids showed a group of women having explosive diarrhea while trying on wedding gowns. You have to top that if you want to keep playing this game of shock humor.

Maybe I would have appreciated this film more if it came out three years ago which as around the time of my own ten-year high school reunion, but it didn’t, so oh well. Maybe I would have connected with it more if, like Jim, I was dealing with raising kids, but I’m not. At this stage of my life, one of my biggest concerns is my career path, and only two characters in Reunion—Finch and Stiffler—are really having similar issues. By the end they seem to resolve those issues much more easily than I’ve been able to. By no means am I watching these movies to find the answers to my own problems, but I’d relate better if their problems at least felt more consequential.

It is at least impressive that they got all the original cast members back considering the different places they all are in their careers. It’s probably a testament to how much they enjoyed the original. We all did. I hear they’re working on a fifth movie. I imagine I’ll feel exactly the same way I do now, but we’ll see. I wish them luck.

My Rating

American Reunion
Directors: Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg (Both: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay)
Writes: Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, (Both: Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas), Adam Herz (American Pie, American Pie 2, American Wedding)