There’s no other movie genre as niche but enduring as the teen comedy. Even today, memorable titles always stick with us, like 1978’s ‘Grease’ and literally every John Hughes movie from the ’80s. Even the ’90s, the mythic age of Tamagotchis and boy bands, had its share of quotable classics like ‘Clueless’ and ’10 Things I Hate About You.’

And it’s impossible to exclude 1999’s ‘American Pie.’ The movie about four high school boys determined to lose their virginities before graduation made its indelible mark on pop culture. It spawned an entire movie franchise and introduced terms such as ‘American Pie Presents: Band Camp’ and ‘MILF’ to the teenage lexicon. Both a coming-of-age story and a raunchy comedy, ‘American Pie’ set a standard for subsequent teen comedies hell-bent on replicating its perfect balance of sex and laughter.

Fast-forward to ‘American Reunion,’ the latest theatrical release since the third sequel in 2003. For anyone who never watched any of the original movies – excluding the four direct-to-DVD spin-offs – it’ll fall short of the mark, playing like a mash-up of tired teen comedy tropes. But for those who experienced the thrill of watching the first ‘American Pie’ without parent supervision, ‘American Reunion’ is a slice of nostalgia and a return to the genre the first three movies helped define.

As the title suggests, the crew is back in town for the East Great Falls High School reunion. The movie begins with the notion that these familiar faces have settled comfortably into adulthood: Jim and Michelle (Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan) now have a toddler son. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is newly married and mustachioed. Chris, aka ‘Oz,’ (Chris Klein) is a reality television star, and former sophisticate Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a motorcycle-riding daredevil.

But not much has changed for the Class of 1999.

Turns out, graduating from high school doesn’t necessarily mean leaving it behind. Adulthood doesn’t keep Jim from blacking out in his dad’s kitchen, Kevin and Oz from crushing on old flames Vicky and Heather (Tara Reid and Mena Suvari), or Michelle from starting stories with the famous catchphrase: ‘This one time at band camp.’ Seann William Scott’s Steve Stifler best embodies this regression. The perpetually stunted man-child, with an undying devotion to booze and sex, perfectly encapsulates the bawdy spirit that made the first ‘American Pie’ movies enjoyable.

‘American Reunion’ is the longest movie of the series at 113 minutes. A large chunk of its runtime imports anything and everything remotely memorable from earlier movies. Everyone returns even if only for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo, including Jennifer Coolidge’s iconic Stifler’s Mom who you’d love to – you know. Even the movie’s soundtrack pulls largely from ’90s pop music, not too subtly trying to take audience members back to a time when teen comedies like ‘American Pie’ were groundbreaking and hilarious. 

The jokes are still fresh, though. Stifler’s number two in an ice cooler is outrageous enough to draw laughter, if not discomfort when the scene lasts a beat too long. But the most successful gags come from references to prior films, from allusions to Jim’s memorable webcam dance to Michelle’s band camp fascination with the flute. Even the titular gag from the first movie in which Jim gets caught ‘experimenting’ with an apple pie gets the Judd Apatow update, this time treating audience members to a full-frontal glance at Jim’s apples.

Even if the story of high school boys desperate to lose their virginities sounds frivolous in today’s post-‘Superbad’ era, ‘American Reunion’ gets away with the same antics by leaning heavily on the nostalgia factor. Although most of us were probably too young to catch ‘American Pie’ when it first hit theaters, the messages of high school insecurities and hormones are universal enough. We still root for this band of brothers even in their early 30s.

After all, if there’s anything to learn from the gang’s return to East Great Falls High, it’s that we’ll be at our respective high school reunions soon enough.

dataroy@syr.edu

Published on April 12, 2012 at 12:00 pm