When Hollywood.com interviewed American Pie screenwriter Adam Herz, who was out stumping for the film’s three-quel, American Wedding, he told us, “I’m gonna call it quits while we’re ahead.”
He was one film too late.
The American Pie series is all about raunchy comedy, sure, but as recent romantic comedies have shown, there’s a thin line between humor and stupidity. American Wedding launches the previously popular series over that line. The jokes are stale, obvious and often flat-out stupid. While the movie did squeeze a few smiles out of me, I couldn’t help but wonder what was in the popcorn when I heard people actually laughing at the brainless, anything-goes jokes about pubic hair, sexual intercourse with an elderly woman, dog pooh being mistaken for a pastry and the old straight-man-in-a-dance-off-at-a-gay-club gag. I guess some people are into that sort of tasteless, slapstick, immature comedy played out by supposedly maturing young adults.
Some of the maturing young adults from the original movies have done exactly that–matured. Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, Shannon Elizabeth and Chris Klein may have started their careers doing pooh jokes on the first two American Pie movies, but they’ve since moved on to at least slightly more mature projects. They were greatly missed the third time around.
Their replacements include Cadence (January Jones), Michelle’s sister/bridesmaid; dominatrix/strippers played by Amanda Swisten and her cohort Nikki Schieler Ziering; and this really random gay guy from some bar who wears revoltingly provocative leather pants.
As for the remaining original cast members, I regret to inform you that Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Seann William Scott, Thomas Ian Nicholas and Eugene Levy were nothing short of mediocre–not surprising considering their characters were trite and annoying and their lines were hackneyed and stupid.
On the plus side, Eddie Kaye Thomas‘ Finch (aka S**t-break) has matured handsomely and now bears an irresistible resemblance to sexy musician John Mayer. You can’t help but envy Jennifer Coolidge‘s proximity to him when as Stifler’s Mom (aka MILF, “Mom I’d Like To F**k, or MILDEW, Mom I’d Like Doing Everything With) she makes a refreshing cameo at the end of the movie.
As great as Pies 1 and 2 were, American Wedding is proof that you can have too much of a good thing. Now that they’ve gone this far over the edge, though, it makes sense to go all the way to part four: American Divorce. It would open the door to infinite comic opportunity: We could watch the married couples introduced in American Wedding have affairs, tear each others’ hair out, file for divorce and battle for custody of their kids–the next generation of American pie-eating youth.
