Director: Jesse Dylan

Cast: Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Thomas Ian Nichols, Eugene Levy

Distributor: UIP

Worth: $11.50

Released: August 7

For a franchise widely credited as having ushered in the current teen comedy fad, the American Pie movies have always showed a surprising amount of heart and soul. Well, more than the average teen movie, anyway.

And the personalities from the first two movies seemed such permanent fixtures, many fans wondered if the third installment would fall in tatters with half the gang (notably Chris Klein, Mena Suvari and Shannon Elizabeth) absent.

Thankfully the recipe for this kind of pie isn’t complicated; plenty of gross sight gags, implausibly embarrassing comic hijinx for the hapless Jim (Biggs), a smattering of sexual tension and the expected clashing between familiar characters.

High school and college are a distant memory, and Jim has realised he’ll never find another woman like Michelle (Hannigan). After proposing marriage after a botched restaurant blowjob (interrupted by his Dad, of course — played faithfully again by Eugene Levy), the plotting is minimal. We get to watch the normal headaches and drama that precede any wedding, only notched up to teen movie levels of smut and toilet humour, albeit with the occasional outbreak of warmth.

Like most recent action blockbusters, the story is little more than a reason to deliver us from one over-imaginative episode to the next — Jim unwittingly ruining the wedding cake, Finch in competition with Stifler for Michelle’s sister, hiding two strippers from Michelle’s conservative parents and the chocolate truffle (take just one guess) to name a few.

The proceedings occasionally feel a little choppy and misaligned; it’s as if the writers wanted to include signature scenes that would have been great as individual sketches, but it leaves the rhythm of the story with a ‘hammered together’ feel.

The support cast also looks a little tired at times, leaving it up to the energetic and ever-obnoxious Stifler (Scott) to keep things light — although with so much of the comedy on Scott’s shoulders, at times it starts to seem like the Stifler Show.

Resting almost totally on the expectation of what it delivers, American Pie; The Wedding isn’t the most original offering at the movies right now, but if you got something out of both its predecessors, it’ll keep you satisfied and amused.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2003 at 12:00 am and is filed under Film, Film Reviews, Filmink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.