Thirteen years after the cult classic comedy of our generation, American Pie was released, the infamous gang has returned to the silver screen, in the fourth installment of the original American Pie series, American Reunion. The film, which was released on April 5th, had been much anticipated ever since rumors of the film being made at all, started circulating around the internet. Though most of the target audience consisted of the current high school-ers that grew up with the three preceding films, anyone that enjoys a provocative, fun comedy was found in the theater seats.
Disregarding all the failed attempts at the small spin-offs of the series, American Reunion takes us back to the start, so to speak; just, thirteen years later. Awkward power-couple Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) are now married, and with a child in tow, a little lackluster in the romance department. Oz (Chris Klein) is now a successful NFL newscaster, Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is an architect, and married to someone other than Vicky (Tara Reid), Finch (Eddie Kay Thomas) has been globetrotting, and Steve Stifler (Sean William Scott) has gone on to become a temp in the corporate world. The gang all seem a bit bored with their now routine lives, until they all get an e-mail from a former classmate, inviting them to a high school reunion. Everyone in the gang jumps at the chance, and heads out to their former hometown to attend.
Of course in true American Pie fashion, chaos ensues at the hand of Stifler, who upon seeing his friends, becomes nostalgic about the fun times the group had together at parties, and decides to throw one in an attempt to have that “fun” feeling one last time, while they’re all together. Conflict arises when the newly-reunited friends become split apart, after Finch reveals he has lied and is actually broke, Jim is believed to be cheating on Michelle with a younger neighbor girl, and Stifler is again, blamed for being immature and causing everything negative to happen.
The film drags out a bit, with two hours of material happening over the course of only a weekend, making the conflicts seem to be resolved faster than what might happen in the real world. However, the constant raunchy humor is exactly what pioneer American Pie fans expect and love about the franchise, and this film is filled with plenty of it (a little more than plenty this time — it is rated R for a very specific reason), while simultaneously using this humor to teach a valuable lesson of true friendship. American Reunion has grossed $172,672,280 since it’s April 5th release date, and with our generation eager to see where their favorite childhood troublemakers ended up, it will surely end up another success added to the original series.
