American Pie: Reunion

Viewer Rating:Macdog has rated American Pie: Reunion rating: 1 Star

To fans of the “American Pie” series, to those who love the characters and the sort of comedy it offers, there really is only one review you can give of this latest addition to the franchise. It's got all the old cast back and it's pretty much business as usual.

To everyone else it has to be made clear just how utterly obtuse this entire endeavour is. Given that the original wasn't really an original but merely an update of the likes of “Meatballs”, “Porky's” and “Revenge of the Nerds” you can imagine what the law of diminishing returns has done when you realise that this is the eight movie bearing the “American Pie” brand.

You can only make the same old jokes so often before desperation sets in and we're not five minutes in when this becomes apparent. Jim and Michelle have a son and like many parents they've grown worried that the spark has gone out of their relationship. Cue some tasteless smut that sees their son become the butt of a lewd “joke”.

As it turns out their thirteen year high school reunion is coming up (guess no-one was interested back in 2009) and they both hope that returning home might help to rekindle things in the bedroom department.

Arriving at his father's house Jim is left to bring the bags in and wouldn't you know it the next door neighbour he used to babysit shows up looking like something from a teenager's fantasy. I wonder if this chance meeting will play any part in the plot?

Jim returns to his old room where he and his Dad play out a photocopy of a scene from the first film before he heads off to the bar to meet the guys, most of whom haven't had a decent acting gig in over a decade. Chris Klein reeks of that unique desperation common to actors who were once hailed as the next big thing but suddenly found they were just the same old small time.

The girls all show up arriving into the plot about as subtly as a klaxon. Tara Reid has trouble acting like she's asleep while Shannon Elizabeth is shoved on with a brush in a particularly ludicrous moment.

Jokes and references are followed up by explanations why they are supposed to be funny. A whole twenty minutes is expended on Jim sneaking the girl he used to babysit back into her house. Toilet humour, gratuitous nudity, drug consumption, inebriation – every rusty device in the vulgarity toolkit is fished out in the hope of grabbing a laugh.

The only person who really looks like they're at home is Seann William Scott as Stifler. Everyone else looks slightly embarrassed. And they should be. This is appalling.

Review published on the 09 May 2012 22:37