American Pie 4 Reunion – Cinema Review

The success of American Pie: Reunion will depend largely on your age and how fondly you remember the first three films (ignore the other cash-ins), essentially it is a trip down memory lane, for both audience and cast alike.

Returning for their 13^th anniversary school reunion, the whole Ameican Pie crew are back, older but not much wiser.   Marriage is taking its toll on Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), parenthood has put the dampeners on their sex life and finding the odd moment to ‘please themselves’ is the best they can hope for.   This does lead to the now obligatory and excruciating (in more ways than one) pre-credit masturbating scene.

Oz (Chris Klein) is a sports reporter and minor celebratory with a model girlfriend but far from model life and is conflicted at seeing Heather (Mena Suvari) again.  Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is happily married but still harbours feelings for first love Vicky (Tara Reid) whilst Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) appears to have become the nomadic jet-setter he always wanted to be.  Of course there is no American Pie without Stifler (Sean William Scott) and there is plenty of Stifler to go around, every bit as loud and obnoxious as ever but equally as funny.  This probably works best when he ‘mentors’ Jim’s Dad (Eugene Levy).  When I say ‘mentor’ I of course mean, gets him drunk and sends him looking for ‘Vag’.

The majority of the film is spent lamenting on the passage of time and how things have changed ‘since they were young’ whilst lusting after jail bait in bikinis.  Both Heather and Vicky seem to have been forgotten in the plot and neither get much to do other than look slightly forlorn and/or lovestruck, only Michelle gets anything resembling character development.

The laugh out loud moments are still present but the gross out factor has been lost over the years, once you’ve shagged a pie it is hard to top it.  There is a chance for some justice to be dished out to one of the characters though, I will not give it away but rest assured an old score is settled. ‘Laid’ to rest shall we say?

There is still plenty of fun to be had, there may not be as many shocks as there were in the originals but as with the characters, time has passed by and things are different now.  The joy of spending another couple of hours in the company of old friends is enough to make this well worth going to see.  However, just like the school reunion itself, there is fun to be had with nostalgia and catching up with past acquaintances but somehow it is never the same as the first time around.

Jules says… 3.5/5