American Reunion Review

[Westside Steve]

American Reunion

Universal

R 113 min

 

To be honest, gang, I don't remember a whole lot about the original AMERICAN PIE. I do remember that it was something of an icon in the world of a raunchy sex comedies and that a great deal of the humor involved masturbation and bodily fluids. Oh and as I recall Second City's Eugene Levy was one of the stars.

I am not positive but it seems like I didn't hate it quite as badly as I might have given the situation. Of course that might be relative to the John Huston quotes from CHINATOWN, something about crooked politicians ugly buildings and whores all becoming more respectable with age. With the onslaught of vulgarity we've seen over the past few years, perhaps something like this seems tame by comparison.

Yes for those who love meat beating comedy there's still plenty of that but now the same old group of guys are also dealing with more adult situationsl.

For example, a young couple hasn't had time to be intimate since the baby was born and they're worried about their relationship.

The nerd seems to have lived an exciting and provocative life and is now the envy of all his friends. Or has he? One of the guys wants to ditch his glamorous but superficial career for the woman he's loved all these years. The fat girl is now hot and the asshole, well he's still an asshole . As for Pop (Levy), he's been widowed for 3 years and it's now time to get back out in to the social world.

It's basically a raunchy redemption comedy.

Surprisingly enough the raunch doesn't necessarily outweigh the redemption portion of the film. Even though this is not a particularly charismatic group of actors I found myself actually somewhat involved in each of these different interwoven stories.

Everything seems to work out well even if there is nothing particularly ground breaking. (And for my friend the Amazing Willis, yes there was some frontal nudity.)

Also my litmus test for any comedy is the fact that I laughed out loud at least three times. In a decade or so I doubt I'll remember any more about AMERICAN REUNION then I did about AMERICAN PIE but that's alright. Don't take it too seriously and relax.

C+

WSS

 

Email: westsidesteve@aol.com