Review: American Reunion (2012)

“Were we just as obnoxious as these kids back in the day?”
– Kevin

SYNOPSIS: Jim, Michelle, Stifler, and their friends reunite in East Great Falls, Michigan for their high school reunion. – via IMDB

Well. Uhm, this is, hands down, my least favourite of the American Pie movies as they stand with the original members. I didn’t expect this to be good (I mean the older ones aren’t great, but they were a large part of my silly youth),  but I thought maybe nostalgia could save this one a little.

It straight up didn’t. The poster might hark back to the first of its kind, and the content may have tried at times, but it was desperate and a cheap cash grab. How Oz is suddenly back with a stray throwaway line about The Wedding, nope. Kevin is back, has a wife, and has a whole story arc with Vicki going.

We went through three movies with no real severe nudity (yes, there were boobs, but nothing too private. This movie? Show me Jim’s dick. Through a pot lid. Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to see for a cheap laugh. I know the others were also filled with crude, gross out humour, but this just seemed like a line crossed I didn’t need. I also did not like the creepy story with this young girl prostrating herself at Jim’s feet, and all these guys preying on young, high school girls. For reals. If you have been out of school twelve years, you should not be trying to make it with a sixteen year old.

What I did like though was watching Jim’s dad and Stifler’s mom chilling together and having a blast. There is also plenty things that do throw back to the originals, and for the most part, this is pulled off successfully. Stifler has another crazy party, and Jim’s dad is the life of the scene, hands down.

Yeah, I am bitching about this, and I sort of expected it to be weak, but I didn’t expect it to be as terrible as it was at the end of the day. This one can totally just be skipped. It is cringey and embarrassing, and not in the sort of forgivable way of the old ones. I still maintain I don’t know how those would be received if seen for the first time nowadays and no youth to help it along.

Review: American Pie (1999)

“No longer will our penises remain flaccid and unused! From now on, we fight for every man out there who isn’t getting laid when he should be! This is our day! This is our time! And, by God, we’re not gonna let history condemn us to celibacy! We will make a stand! We will succeed! We will get laid!”
– Kevin

SYNOPSIS: Four teenage boys enter a pact to lose their virginity by prom night. – via IMDB

See, this was one of those movies for pretty much every coming of age teen in my youth (except Natasha – how the heck did you miss this train?!), and it is a movie I have seen more times than I care to mention. Now, granted, I haven’t seen these movies in years and years and thought it was time to revisit them.

Now, while American Pie is nostalgic as all hell, I also look at it totally differently than I did when I was a rugrat and it came out. It is fun but it is so silly, and such a ludicrous concept that losing your virginity is the be all and end all in your life – though this is also a common teen movie trope. Growing older and wiser in my years (har har har), I have naturally learnt that there are more important things about. Not when you’re a teen though, I guess.

Jason Biggs is totally the perfect guy to play Jim. He is awkward, he is weird, he nails down that vibe and rolls with it. Seann William Scott own Stifler, he is such a total asshat! Finch is a character that I truly enjoyed – uptight, total oddball, but works. Even as a teen he made me laugh, he was just so different from the lot. Eugene Levy is perfectly embarrassing as Jim’s Dad. Alyson Hannigan will forever be “This One Time At Band Camp” Michelle for me, no matter how much How I Met Your Mother I have seen. Needless to say, American Pie touts a range of characters you will remember for years after as they were presented here. *cough cough* Jennifer Coolidge Stifler’s mom.

American Pie really goes for that icky, gross out humour and tons of sexual humour, and I am not really sure how someone who didn’t watch these movies when they came out, or is a lot older, will feel about them. Me? I still have fun, but that is also quite likely fuelled by the nostalgia. Blink-182 (pre-Tom departure) also has a guest appearance, which is quite amusing. This is not to say that the movie is without flaws – seriously, the story is all over the show, the writing and directing is messy at times, and it is definitely clunky.

All that being said, American Pie is nostalgic, silly, and features some gross out humour and is quite raunchy. Uneven but fun, I still think this is worth the watch, though I have no idea how it will work out for people who have never seen it before.

Review: Role Models (2008)

“No, venti is twenty. Large is large. In fact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn’t mean large. It’s also the only one that’s Italian. Congratulations, you’re stupid in three languages.”
– Danny

SYNOPSIS: Wild behavior forces a pair of energy drink reps to enroll in a Big Brother program. – via IMDB

You know, I watched this movie when it came out and I have gone back to it a few times over the years and I still thoroughly enjoy it. No, it isn’t a perfect movie or anything like that, but it is a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

First and foremost, Paul Rudd is absolutely fantastic in this. I adore the man, so will pretty much watch anything he’s in. I think he’s sweet and hilarious and so dry, which works for me. This is no exception, he is plenty entertaining, and works wonders with Stifler Seann William Scott. Scott provides just the type of role you would expect from him, but he does it well. McLovin Christopher Mintz-Plasse entertains endlessly as awkward Augie. Another hilariously awkward character is cocaine-crazy Sweeny, and Jane Lynch has a ball with the role. As you can tell, the movie hinged quite heavily on the actors having fun with the material, and it works. 

The humour made me laugh, too. It’s witty, dry, sarcastic and crude at times throughout, and it totally works. The movie also doesn’t drag out the run-time, so it plays it out and does its thing but doesn’t overstay its welcome, which is great. You just have fun, and then it is over, before it wastes away and tries too hard to be something it isn’t. The story, while not new, is handled deftly. There are a lot of crappy movies in this genre, but every now and then there is one that stands out, one that tries to and succeeds to be more. This is one of those. It has a lot of heart and a lot of humour, knows what it is and goes for it, without being apologetic.

I really enjoyed some of the situations the characters found themselves in and I liked how things were handled. There was even character growth to be found throughout here, which is more than I could have asked for. The soundtrack and score worked, not once taking over and becoming the focus, which is just fine.

So, all in all, if you haven’t checked out Role Models before and feel like a good, light comedy with plenty of heart, I can highly recommend this one, it is quite fun. I don’t really know what to say other than I like this one and I find myself returning to it time and time again and enjoying it without fail.

Rapid Review: Final Destination (2000)

“In death there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps, and no escapes.”
– Bludworth

SYNOPSIS: After a teenager has a terrifying vision of him and his friends dying in a plane crash, he prevents the accident only to have Death hunt them down, one by one. – via IMDB

I popped this in looking for some old school cheese, and I wasn’t disappointed. These movies were never going to be great, ever, but they can provide some mindless entertainment, and were definitely worth throwing in at the beginning of the series, before they got super terrible. I think this is one of those instances where it should have been a standalone, but with more effort done to it so it wouldn’t be forgettable without the slew of sequels. I remember this movie was so big when I was younger, it was everywhere, so you must know how many times this was seen at movie nights, etc. Anyway, pretty simple story coupled with some semi-sketchy acting would result in your average horror, and Final Destination does not deviate much from the formula. This is not necessarily a bad thing. There were tons of creative deaths (at the time), spans of cringe-worthy dialogue, Devon Sawa at his height of fame as well as some Ali Larter thrown into the mix. I had fun – exploding planes, beheadings, rogue buses, constant freak accidents? Yep, Final Destination had it all, as well as some silly romance permeating the story, and all that random, 90’s teen anger that has always been in the older movies, captured by Kerr Smith. I don’t know, everything about this movie screams 90’s teen horror, and that is okay, but definitely not as good as some of the other horror/shasher films we got that decade (though we got our fair share of super sketchy, too). The story, in my opinion, could have done more with itself, but chose not to, so you get a relatively standard horror flick at the end of the day. The special effects in this movie ran rampant, although they are certainly not the worst in the franchise, it is something that turns me off in a movie – an overkill of effects. Especially when they too dodgy and half-assed. I don’t actually have too much to say about this, and I am sure that the large majority have seen this movie, so you should all know how you feel about it, more or less. Some good, some bad, some downright sketchy, so Final Destination.