Review of American Pie (1999) by Giorgio P — 01 Feb 2016

American Pie is a teen comedy that bursted out from the popularity of 90's gross out comedies. The film follows four friends that come up with the pact to all get laid before prom night. And that's pretty much the plot.

... However, it's not all bad, it can actually work sometimes. What works about this film for half the time is its sense of humor. The writers did a pretty decent job making purposeful, cringeworthy jokes that felt kinda like real life dialogue.

The humor itself was either funny or "wow they went that low". Any scene with Eugene Levy and Jason Biggs is gold, I laughed a lot during those scenes. There's some good gags in the film but some are just fatally disgusting.

The beer scene in the first 20 minutes is completely stupid and EXTREMELY gross (not to mention unrealistic). That's actually the main problem with American Pie. None of the delivery feels genuine or real.

There's scenes where I thought to myself "Yup, that would never happen" and that's really a shame. If it were a purposeful over the top comedy it would probably work, but it's not.

Term comedies are supposed to make you feel like you are that age and relate to the characters in it and I honestly can't relate to anyone in this movie because they're honestly not very good people except for maybe Finch.

The two leads are pretty likable actually, played by Jason Biggs and Chris Klein. Biggs plays kind of a hopeless, horny dork, while Klein plays a lovable doofus type of guy. I can't really tell if he's acting though.

In Election, Klein played the exact same character so I don't know if he's just a bad actor or if he's just typecast. I also can't tell where these characters are in terms of their school's social structure.

Are the cool nerds? Are they cool kids that just happen to be virgins? They're friends with the most popular kids in school, but when they try to talk to a girl they're awkward? It just doesn't seem consistent.

The problem with the story is that everything feels really scripted and again, unrealistic. Everything just falls into place for everyone and *poof* happy ending. It just went way too fast for it to seem like there was a ginormous struggle for these kids.

The one other thing I'll give to this movie is that it felt a bit nostalgic to high school days. Being with your friends, partying, doing dumb stuff, getting involved, that kind of stuff. I thought American Pie did that really well.

That doesn't save this movie sadly. American Pie's storyline is a mess and the story seemed VERY rushed at that. It did have some good gags and some good high school nostalgia, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again.

C-.