I remember seeing the first AMERICAN PIE in 1999 very well. Universal Pictures (very smartly in retrospect) held several advance screenings of the movie, and despite consisting of what was then a primarily no-name cast, the word of mouth from all those screenings solidified the film’s fortunate fate. It earned over $100 million in U.S. box office on an estimated $11 million budget. The worldwide DVD rentals topped that, with an estimated $110 million in earnings. Sequels were inevitable, and while I enjoyed AMERICAN PIE 2 (2001) for what it was, AMERICAN WEDDING (2003) seemed to lose some of the charm (along with half the original cast). After that came four direct-to-video spin-offs, all of which had Eugene Levy reprising his role as Jim’s dad, but none of which featured any of the other principal cast members. AMERICAN PIE PRESENTS BAND CAMP was moderately funny, but it quickly went downhill from there. It almost seemed like the AMERICAN PIE surname was becoming the new NATIONAL LAMPOON in terms of film quality. Thankfully the new movie brings back the entire original cast, and in many ways recaptures the spirit of the original.

As the story opens we see Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) are now raising a young boy, and each trying to find private time for masturbation… in place of an actual sex life. A reunion for their high school class is planned, this being a 13-year reunion because no one could get it together for the 10-year, and the original crew of friends begins to reconnect. Oz (Chris Klein) is now a sportscaster hooked up with a somewhat superficial party girl named Mia (Katrina Bowden). Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is now married to a reality show-obsessed woman named Ellie (Charlene Amoia). Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) returns to town on a sleek motorcycle telling tales of his wild International adventures. All four men agree they should purposely keep Steve Stifler (Seann William Scott) in the dark about their plans to reunite the class, but those plans are foiled when Stifler walks into the hometown bar to find them all hanging out again. We also learn that Jim’s dad (Eugene Levy) is three years past the death of his wife, and Jim is encouraging him to get back out there and meet someone. Heather (Mena Suvari) and Vicky (Tara Reid) show back up along the way, and pretty soon the old gang is officially back together. But as current statuses are revealed and true feelings come the surface, we see that these seemingly well-adjusted adult versions of high school friends are anything but content.

AMERICAN REUNION is written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, the men responsible for the HAROLD & KUMAR movies. Adam Herz, who wrote the first two AMERICAN PIE films, serves as an executive producer this time around… he seems to have quit the writing game from the looks of it. There’s something almost automatically validating about seeing the entire original cast back together on the big screen. Sure, a few of them have obviously aged, and some of the high school humor seems a little more out of reach, but the chemistry is still there. I remember watching AMERICAN WEDDING and feeling things were just off, and it may have been because only about half of the principal players were in it. This one feels more complete, and each character is given proper moments in the spotlight in a rather fairly-distributing script. Even John Cho shows up with his most-lengthy of portrayals for MILF Guy #2… in fact, he’s the one planning the reunion in the story. Perhaps the only roles played on too small a scale are those of Jessica (Natasha Lyonne), Sherman “The Sherminator” (Chris Owen) and Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), who each show up for brief cameos but serve little purpose to the story.

Jason Biggs recaptures the charm he had in the original film, as the awkward and always ill-fated Jim. His well-meaning characteristics have aged along with him, and despite the obvious passage of time, he’s essentially indentical to the guy we all fell in love with in the first outing. Alyson Hannigan also has more to do this time around, reminding us how freaky she was in the first place, and becoming a loveable heroine to the piece. Chris Klein and Thomas Ian Nicholas seem to have the oddest arcs, both playing guys who left their original loves behind, and both feeling out of place in their current relationships. It seems inevitable where they’re headed in the story, but only one of them gets there. Tara Reid and Mena Suvari appear to be some of the more difficult characters to write for in this piece, each serving as an obvious plot device, but neither seeming to get a whole lot to do. I wouldn’t say their underused, maybe just a little underwritten – but hey, in a screenplay with this many characters, that’s bound to happen. Eddie Kaye Thomas has the most promise for being an interesting character in this one, and there’s some nice twists with him I honestly didn’t see coming. Seann William Scott seems to have recaptured the acerbic likable qualities of Stifler without overplaying it the way he did in AMERICAN WEDDING. This Stifler feels like the one we met originally, and there’s some genuinely funny bits with him that rival the orignal story. And yes, in case you were worried, Jennifer Coolidge is indeed back as Stifler’s mom, getting more screentime in this outing that any of the previous ones. Eugene Levy also gets ample screentime here as Jim’s dad, showing more emotional range and even a much wilder side that what we’re used to. A little Levy goes a long way, and while the filmmakers run dangerously close to overusing him, the end result is ample-but-satisfying. Dania Ramirez joins the team as a former band camp girl who got much better looking with age, but it’s Ali Cobrin who steals many scenes from the cast as a wild newly-18 girl that Jim used to babysit, who has now set her sights on the married man, causing him to question his own sexual desires and loyalty to his wife. Cobrin bares most of her beautiful body and delivers an uninhibited performance as the drunken Lolita, and it’s worth noting as she holds her own against the rest of the seasoned performers in each scene.

AMERICAN REUNION runs the risk of giving the audience more than they need, even feeling a bit long in parts, but there’s also the chance this is the last time we’ll see all these characters together, so it makes it all seem worthwhile. I remember thinking in a scene where Stifler has a party that gets out of control, that right afterward it seemed like the film should be ending, and it just kept going for another 30 minutes or so. But that last half-hour packs in just about everything you could want from an AMERICAN PIE movie, and really gives this cast a proper send off – even the smaller roles. The jokes are funny and effective, and there’s no overly gross comedic moments to reflect badly on… save for one sexual scene with Stifler, but we won’t go into that. In many ways AMERICAN REUNION borrows heavily from the original AMERICAN PIE, sometimes almost repeating gags with the same tempo, but it all works. Hurwitz and Schlossberg did a fine job bringing these characters back together the way the fans would want to see them, and this film (should it be the final in the series) would be a fantastic way to say goodbye to them all. The script gives me the familiarity I hoped for, and the surprises I didn’t see coming. There’s also the question of where they could possibly go from here, as AMERICAN FUNERAL doesn’t exactly sound like a fun reason to revisit these guys and gals. If you’re a fan of the original, prepare yourself to be reunited with the fun and spirit that first film delivered… and hey, it’s about time.

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