April 18, 2012

REVIEW: American Reunion (dir. Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg)


Cast: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid, Seann William Scott, Mena Suvari, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Eugene Levy, Jennifer Coolidge,

Ten years after that fateful, ‘virginity-busting’ prom night… nothing happened. There was probably some sort of reunion, but Jim, Kevin, Oz, and the rest of the gang were too content in their lives to dig up any of those old feelings and memories. Three years later, however, and everybody is miserable: Jim and Michelle’s leporine flame has been extinguished by the arrival of their first child; Kevin, now a full-time househusband, is too scared to tell his wife how much he hates reality TV; and Oz presents a sports newscast and has the ditsy pin-up girlfriend to prove it (she’s a queen bitch, and couldn’t be less suited to our rugged, cuddly lacrosse star.)

It’s clear a trip back home is exactly what the boys need to get a bit of perspective on their lives. Fortunately, that all-important 13th High School Reunion has arrived – what a great excuse to get the old band back together!

Finch arrives before they’ve even entered their first bar: screeching up the street on a supercharged motorcycle with tales of his adventures in Latin rainforests. Shortly after, they run into the one person they’d hoped to avoid… Stifler. Ah, Stifler: still living at home with his slutty mother, and even as an office temp he manages to wreak havoc wherever he turns. The moment he arrives the shots start flowing, and we sense that everything is slipping out of control in much the same way it did thirteen years ago.

That’s all I’ll give you in prose, but here’s a little list of buzzwords to whet your appetite: an 18th birthday party by a lake, more awkward conversations with Jim’s dad, bondage gear, taking a dump in a beer cooler, more awkward moments in Jim’s kitchen, MILF chants, waking up next to Vicky, waking up next to Heather, waking up next to Stifler’s mum (Eugene Levy, you dawg!), realising you’re not in High School anymore and it’s time to grow up, waking up next to Finch’s mum.

Well, that about covers it. There is nothing new here: nothing progressive in the script, nothing original in the comedy or performances, nothing complicated in the narrative. But it’s not a ‘new’ film… it’s a reunion! You can sense it as soon as you glance around the cinema at all the other late-twentysomethings giggling with glee and remembering all the naughty little things they did in their teens, after they first saw American Pie. Anyone who remembers the heady teen thrills of the original film can’t help but feel a pang of nostalgia the moment Jim wanders into his childhood bedroom. It’s a treasure to revisit a place with so many fond memories, even if the memories aren’t technically real… or ours.