American Reunion - Review

I will be the first to say that I was honestly excited for another real American Pie movie. Not the shitty direct to DVD ones about band camp, but a real movie. I am a big fan of the American Pie films (aka, American Pie, American Pie 2, and American Wedding) and was the most excited to see the full cast reunite once more.

With that said, I wasn't all that disappointed. It was a little raunchier than American Wedding was, and kind of unnecessarily so, but the nostalgia was definitely there. They brought back jokes, songs, pictures, yearbooks, and characters that I didn't really expect. The only semi-important cast member that didn't return was Jim's mom and they played it off as her passing away three years prior to the reunion. Stifler's brother and Kevin's brother didn't make cameos either. A list of returning characters, to the best of my memory:

Chris Ostreicher (aka, Oz)
Jim Levenstein
Michelle Levenstein (aka, Michelle Flaherty the Band Geek)
Kevin Myers
Paul Finch (aka, Finch)
Steve Stifler (aka, the Stifmeister)
Vicky
Heather 
Jessica
Jim's Dad
Stifler's Mom
Milf Guy #1
Milf Guy #2
Chuck Sherman (aka, The Shermanator)
Nadia


The basic plot is the "old gang" returns for their 13th reunion (they compensated for not releasing the movie in 2009 this way). Jim and Michelle are still married with a 2-year old son, Oz is an on-air sports guy who recently participated in a show similar to Dancing with the Stars and has a crazy Hollywood girlfriend, Kevin is married and is a stay at home architect, Finch claims to be a world traveler, and Stifler is a temp office assistant at an investment firm. Vicki is still in New York City and Heather is working at a hospital after completing medical school and is dating a cardiologist. At the actual reunion is where you see the brief (and yes, they are very brief) cameos from Sherman, Jessica, and Nadia. Sherman married, had a child, and got divorced. Jessica is now a lesbian and brings her girlfriend with her to the reunion. Nadia catches Jim and Michelle having sex in the band room and is with a boyfriend who resembles Jim.

Overall I feel like it did a good job of bringing you up to speed on who the characters became after high school and college. I think the middle of the movie was a basic waste of time because it focused on Jim trying to avoid his now 18-year old neighbor Kara who is trying to have sex with him because she always had a crush. Jim and the guys crash her birthday party on the lake and she tries to have sex with Jim once she is drunk but he sneaks her into her house with the help of Stifler, Oz, and Finch because he wants to stay loyal to Michelle. That all felt kind of forced, but it followed the basic pattern of the movies. In American Pie we had the internet broadcast with Jim and Nadia, in American Pie 2 we had the lesbians making Jim, Stifler, and Finch make out and Jim supergluing his hand to his dick, and in American Wedding we had the dance off between Stifler and the gay men and Jim shaving his balls and then dumping all the hair into the A/C. In this one, we had Jim's fiasco with his underage neighbor.
The beginning and the end were the best parts of the movie. What I always liked about American Pie was how they balanced the humor with the serious moments that actually had a message. This one didn't fall short. Jim still got the advice from his dad about keeping his marriage alive after having a baby, Oz and Heather reconciled, Kevin and Vicky finally made peace, Stifler realized that it was time to grow up and stop trying to re-create high school, and Finch came to terms with the fact that his life isn't what he intended it to be. I really liked how it ended. It did, unfortunately, leave it open for a 5th movie but I don't think they will go for it. The actors are all a little old at this point and it showed, especially Chris Klein and Jason Biggs. They look a good 10 years older than the characters are supposed to be.

So yeah, it wasn't bad. At least for what it was. It's an American Pie movie.