American Reunion

The original American Pie movie ― a raunchy but charming sex comedy ― emerged as the flagship for the late '90s boom in teen-oriented pop culture. But after one surprisingly good sequel and another that had the characters getting married only four years after high school, for some reason, the franchise stopped inspiring copycats in theatres and instead gave way to its own straight-to-DVD machine that existed solely to keep feeding Eugene Levy paycheques. Having assembled the entire cast of the first to recapture the glory days, American Reunion should have been a guaranteed hit. Rather than bring back Adam Herz (who wrote the first three), however, the producers instead tossed the keys to the franchise to writers/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (the creative team behind the Harold & Kumar movies). When this happens with television, to shows like Community, fans automatically assume things have taken a turn for the worse, but when writers or directors aren't brought back for franchise sequels, producers and audiences alike celebrate the "new eyes" and "fresh perspectives." The contradiction of selling American Reunion on its nostalgic value while not bringing back the original writer or directors (brothers Chris and Paul Weitz) seemed lost on everyone. On the surface, the film is about all the characters returning (oddly) for their 13-year high school reunion. But the real story Hurwitz and Schlossberg are interested in telling is what Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) refers to as a "weekend with the guys." Whereas the first American Pie developed all its characters, male and female alike, to mine the depths of teenage awkwardness, in this film, Mena Suvari and Tara Reid gamely appear briefly in order to let the guys wax wistful and adulterous. There isn't much of a story for anyone involved and it isn't exactly a knee-slapper. Most tellingly, Natasha Lyonne (who played the lone platonic female friend in the first two films) returns in a cameo to declare that she's a lesbian and also to justify her appearance on the poster ― a recreation of the one for the original. Stars and executive producers Jason Biggs and Sean William Scott get plenty of screen time, however, and seem thrilled to be back on the DVD bonus features, including the optimistically titled featurette "The 'Reunion' Reunion: Re-Launching the Series." With their intentions spelled out in that title, it's all the more questionable how the producers, directors or cast could put together such an underwhelming film. Misogynistic, but too middling to even be offensive, American Reunion isn't as big a disappointment as other sequel/-quasi-reboots ― the expectations were too low. But that's always been the case with this series. It just would've been nice if the film had stayed true to its roots by winning audiences over anyway. Other bonus features include all sorts of deleted/extended/alternate stuff, a self-satisfied filmmaker commentary and many featurettes of debatable necessity.