American Pie: Reunion

Despite shedding some characters for the third outing, and releasing three other straight to DVD flicks, American Pie: Reunion was always a distinct possibility - given the continued success of breakout series star, Seann William Scott. His Stifler essentially dragged the sequels to a crass, funny place, and he ultimately became the main reason for laughs. Unsurprising then, that Scott was the catalyst for this fourth theatrical film - and he is again the best thing about it.

The title is pretty self-explanatory; this sequel reunites the cast of American Pie for the fourth time, as they gear up for a class reunion. The class of '99, including cast-offs from American Wedding (Klein, Reid etc) all return, in roles of a similar size to the original film. Everyone has seemingly grown up, but all still have their issues; Jim (a still game Biggs) is losing the spark in his marriage; Kevin (Nicholas) is wondering about rekindling an old romance with Vicki (a returning Reid); while Stifler has regressed to his old high school self and basically just wants to party all of the time.

American Pie: Reunion works best when it's at its most disgusting, and generally foul mouthed. Naturally, those aforementioned scenes involve Scott, who embodies The Stifmeister with the same amount of frantic, irreverent energy that gave this character a huge cult following to begin with. He's so unpretentious in the way that he approaches the guy that even though the film has too many characters all attempting to justify their existence in a film that really didn't need to be made, it still manages to be very very funny in parts.

Subplots involving Jim and Stifler's Mom, Kevin and Vicki and Jim's limp sex life have gags that work sporadically, but ultimately feel a little stale. However, when William Scott takes a crap in a beer cooler things take a turn for the hilarious again. Of course there's the nostalgia factor in abundance, and when they reuse songs from the original soundtrack in underlines what the whole point of this sequel was - reuniting with some old friends.

Those that grew up and loved the first movie will certainly find laughs; just don't expect anything resembling character progression.