Too Much Pie?
There's a theory in American entertainment: there can never be too much of a good thing, particularly a gazillion dollar grossing movie franchise. But like too much apple pie, the newest entry in the American Pie "saga," American Wedding, may leave even fans with a tummy ache.
Sans Chris Klein, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari and Shannon Elizabeth, the American Pie gang of Stifler (Seann William Scott), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) are preparing for the upcoming nuptials of Jim (Jason Biggs) and his dopey girlfriend Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Of course, following in a long tradition of gross out comedies, the festivities are marred by misadventures featuring doggie poop, pubic hair and anal beads. But, like all comedies, everything turns out okay—a running gag about the hapless Jim whose sexual misadventures form the movie's backbone is that all of his disastrous missteps turn out right in the end.
American Wedding isn't so much a movie, but a series of sex jokes leading up to a punch line that alls well that ends well. This isn't to say that some of the jokes, including the crudest one involving the aforementioned doggie poop, aren't funny, but they miss as much as they hit. A joke involving Stifler's amorous liaison with Jim's grandmother, for instance, not only crosses the line to cruelty but just isn't funny.
There are inspired sequences including he-man Stifler's dance down in a gay bar, which is hilarious since the Stifmeister's goal is to prove that even a gay man can't resist him.
However, other sequences are just plain stupid including a set piece revolving around Jim's bachelor party, which contains the only R-rated female nudity in the movie, falls flat because the joke is forced, and the situation of the buddies and the strippers they've hired being discovered by Michelle's parents does not grow out of a natural comic situation (as the dance down scene does).
The biggest problem with the script is that there is no comic tension, like with Jim being tempted away by Shannon Elizabeth's Nadia in the first two flicks. There is no question that the bride and groom will wed in movie fantasy style, so the audience can just sit back and take one pointless joke after another.
With all the crudeness in American Wedding, there is heart and a message that we should accept friends and loved ones for who they are, but the movie's purpose is to mine the basest of human instincts and foibles, a feat it does with a certain style that is both horrifying and sort of admirable.
Hopefully, this will be the last serving of Pie—it is dubbed as the "thrilling climax"—and Hollywood will turn instead to a main course of meat and potatoes.
Sans Chris Klein, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari and Shannon Elizabeth, the American Pie gang of Stifler (Seann William Scott), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) are preparing for the upcoming nuptials of Jim (Jason Biggs) and his dopey girlfriend Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Of course, following in a long tradition of gross out comedies, the festivities are marred by misadventures featuring doggie poop, pubic hair and anal beads. But, like all comedies, everything turns out okay—a running gag about the hapless Jim whose sexual misadventures form the movie's backbone is that all of his disastrous missteps turn out right in the end.
American Wedding isn't so much a movie, but a series of sex jokes leading up to a punch line that alls well that ends well. This isn't to say that some of the jokes, including the crudest one involving the aforementioned doggie poop, aren't funny, but they miss as much as they hit. A joke involving Stifler's amorous liaison with Jim's grandmother, for instance, not only crosses the line to cruelty but just isn't funny.
There are inspired sequences including he-man Stifler's dance down in a gay bar, which is hilarious since the Stifmeister's goal is to prove that even a gay man can't resist him.
However, other sequences are just plain stupid including a set piece revolving around Jim's bachelor party, which contains the only R-rated female nudity in the movie, falls flat because the joke is forced, and the situation of the buddies and the strippers they've hired being discovered by Michelle's parents does not grow out of a natural comic situation (as the dance down scene does).
The biggest problem with the script is that there is no comic tension, like with Jim being tempted away by Shannon Elizabeth's Nadia in the first two flicks. There is no question that the bride and groom will wed in movie fantasy style, so the audience can just sit back and take one pointless joke after another.
With all the crudeness in American Wedding, there is heart and a message that we should accept friends and loved ones for who they are, but the movie's purpose is to mine the basest of human instincts and foibles, a feat it does with a certain style that is both horrifying and sort of admirable.
Hopefully, this will be the last serving of Pie—it is dubbed as the "thrilling climax"—and Hollywood will turn instead to a main course of meat and potatoes.
