Sunday, April 8, 2012

American Reunion




Runtime: 113 minutes

Directed by: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg

Starring: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Seann William Scott, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Thomas Ian Nicholas

From: Universal

As I mentioned last time, Friday night I went out and saw this opening night. I was hoping for no problems with stupid people in the auditorium but to my surprise there weren't too many people at the screening where I was at. That seems to be out of the ordinary given that it finished 2nd at the box office with about 22 million dollars; not as much money as the other films made but it wasn't a bomb by any means.

The plot is as follows... all of the gang (yep, al of them; some of them only appear in cameos but it still counts) return to East Great Falls, Michigan for their 13th Anniversary high school reunion; the reason why it was 13 was explained in a gag and it's a goofy reason at best but that isn't important. You get to see what the main people (i.e. mainly the guys) have done since you last got to see them. All seem to be doing at least fine at first but you then see that appearances can be deceiving. In particular, Jim and Michelle have love life troubles due to them having a child now. They end up staying at the house of his dad (Eugene Levy, as amusing as always. He gets into some adventures this time, as his wife is now deceased) and things become complicated when he discovers that his next door neighbor/girl he babysat way back when is now 18 and rather attractive.

Things are largely what you'd expect here; not too many surprises. Stifler is still a dick (to use language from the movie) but he wasn't so overbearing and obnoxious. Everyone else is largely the same as you remembered them. It was nice seeing them play those characters again and getting into vulgar adventures. It was nice nostalgia but the movie works fine on its own too. It was also amusing to see them in this generation of YouTube and whatnot, and them commenting (accurately, I say) how girls seem to dress more like tramps now and how everyone seems more selfish and self-centered in this day and age. However, besides the gross-out stuff there's also heart and the characters caring for each other. So it ends up being nice instead of mean-spirited, and as the gags all work and are funny, you should enjoy seeing everyone again. Even The Sherminator, who looks quite a bit different now.

Thus, I recommend that you see this if you generally enjoy the series... at least the theatrical movies. I don't know anyone who has any opinion on the direct to DVD movies they've done in recent years with American Pie Presents something or another. I have a feeling those in general aren't really worth seeing, even if a friend of someone I used to know had a pretty big role in one of them (long story not worth explaining).

I'll be back Wednesday night.

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