American Reunion

* (out of ****)

In 1999 we were introduced to a group of seniors in high school, looking to survive and get laid, and of course we met Stiffler and his mother. Ten years later some producer decided that sure we need another freaking American Pie movie, of which there are now 7 movies, and you know what they’re all the same, the same plot line, mostly the same characters. Now 13 years late we have American Reuinion, where surprisingly everyone actually showed up, not like normal reunions where everyone you don’t want to see comes, and all your ex’s are with super-hot guys and you want to drink away your sorrow, then begin to karaoke Billy Joel songs while you’re pants are falling down. If that was a real story about a reunion it would be the reunion for American Reunion, yeah that’s how bad this movie is.

Heads up…don’t be that guy at the reunion

The story starts with Jim Levinstien (played by Jason Biggs) and his wife Michelle Flaherty (played by Allison Hannigan), living their lives ten years after the events of the first American Pie. Surprisingly, their ten year reunion is coming up and all of Jim’s friends are planning to attend.  So they return down to East Falls, where it all began with a single pie. Throughout the movie you get cameos from the original movie, and get to see all the people who made, and didn’t make names for themselves. The story now is not about getting laid but about staying in love and keeping the sexy times within the marriage. Each character is trying to keep a little bit about him or her while still trying to be an adult. In the end, the movie plays out just like the first one did, except for the twist that they are trying to still act like kids when they’re clearly ten years too old for that.

Did you know Ted from Better Off Ted was in this movie…did you know this was a shameless plug for Better off Ted

 

Unfortunately there were not too many redeemable parts about the movie. While there was nudity and gross and intense scenes about pooping in ice coolers, it was all the same stuff, Jim got into situations which were not his fault, Stiffler was a dick and made everyone else in the group not like him, seriously after ten years Stiffler can’t do anything but think about having sex and being mean to people, I guess some things never change. They even recycled some of the jokes from previous movies. It made the movie tough to watch when you knew Allison Hannigan was going to say, “one time at band camp…” But then again I guess there is something comforting to people about how they hear the same things over and over, how they watch the same movie over and over, how they see the same characters over and over. I guess that’s why we have 7 American Pie movies, because in the end people don’t want to see something new, something intriguing, something that makes them think, they just want to hear a recycled fart joke, laugh and then move on with their simple lives.

Its like a bad fart joke, that they repeat for an hour and a half

American Reunion is definitely a reunion of sorts, a reunion of characters that we grew to love ten years ago, and a reunion of jokes from ten years ago. But I guess this movie isn’t about making it for the people who watched the first American Pie in theaters back in 1999, I mean it is, but it’s really about the new generation in clash with the old. It’s even portrayed within the movie through some of the jokes, ie when Jim and gang are trying to get a drunk 18 year old into her house and Stiffler goes to the door to distract them and asks if they could borrow a phone when the dad asks, “don’t any of you have a cell phone?” The new generation is about partying and drugs and being super crazy, and while I think every generation stood for that in its own way, we all look at the previous generation with some distain always thing “we were never like that” or “this generation is much crazier than we were,” and this movie puts a mirror up to that gap that we all look at. Trust me it doesn’t make up for the crapfest that was American Reuinion, but it redeems it a bit.