Do you remember sitting in the cinema when Jason Biggs stuck his penis in a pastry?
Then you’re probably hitting your 30s about now, maybe married, maybe even a parent. House parties have become dinner parties. A dirty weekend means cleaning the oven. Pies have apple in them, not cock.
Just like the original audience who turned 1999’s affectionate teen sex-comedy into box-office gold, American Pie ’s characters have grown up and settled down. Don’t worry, the franchise hasn’t. More than a decade on, Reunion opens with two wank jokes and never looks back.
In a nice reversal, Jim (Biggs) has gone from desperately trying to have sex to desperately trying not to have sex. He’s married the girl of his dreams, except he and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) are now boring parents whose sizzle has fizzled.
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Chris Klein’s Oz has become a sports presenter and looks like a B-movie actor (ahem). Thomas Ian Nicholas’ Kevin has become a house-husband and grown a beard. Eddie Kaye Thomas’ Finch has travelled the world and looks like a fat Nic Cage (instead of a young Nic Cage).
Seann William Scott’s Stifler... is still Stifler. Scott has perfected his feral funnies in frat-comedies ( Old School , Role Models ) and discovered deeper depths in surprising curios ( Southland Tales , Goon ). No surprise, then: he’s almost the entire reason to watch American Pie: Reunion .
Shoulder-barging his former high-school buddies through their second coming-of-age, Scott’s gleeful performance is what makes the movie happen. He encourages Biggs to bang the horny teenager he used to babysit. He holds a party that ends in a bondage fight on the lawn. And in movie’s best subplot, he gives Jim’s widower dad (Eugene Levy, still great) the Dutch courage to “dust off that old dick and get some ass”.
This is the bro-show, leaving Mena Suvari and Tara Reid with almost nothing to do except look sad and blonde. Even with Stifler on top form, writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (the Harold & Kumar movies) only just find enough antics to carry the movie to the final reunion.
But once there, their script hits all the bases (and a home run for someone) to bring the saga to a funny, satisfying conclusion. Did you order your popcorn sweet or salted? You'll see...
