The Norman Transcript

Entertainment

Discussion

April 6, 2012

With ‘Reunion,’ it’s bye- bye ‘American Pie’

By Roger Moore McClatchy Newspapers

NORMAN — So why, why more “American Pie”?

It’s a lame one, just the same one, now with much older guys.

And starlets wearing mileage from all their whiskey and rye.

Singing “Why did my career go ‘bye’?”

“American Reunion” is a slow and sad, crude and cruel, tame and timid return to the scene of the crime against pastry. No, they don’t joke about how this all takes place an unlucky 13 years later. But life hasn’t run according to plan for the lads _ Jim (Jason Biggs), Oz (Chris Klein), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) or Stifler (Seann William Scott).

Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), on the other hand, roars up to their pre “13th Reunion” party on a motorcycle, full of tales of adventure and derring-do.

Jim is married to band-camp tart Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) and they have a toddler. Oz is a cable TV sportscaster who never made it to ESPN, with a hot young model girlfriend (Katrina Bowden) who is entirely too wild for his mild-mannered ways. Kevin is an architect and stay-at-home dad. And Stifler suffers the fate of many an ex-jock bully boy _ living in the past because the present, when he has to work for guys like the ones he beat up in school, is agony.

They decide to make this reunion their “Hangover” weekend _ heavy drinking, drugs, chasing old flames or high school girls, hiding their transgressions from their significant others.

“Harold and Kumar” vets Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg wrote and directed this trip down Full Frontal Nudity Lane. They’re lost trying to update this exhausted franchise, failing to find any funny new lines, relying on shock laughs involving oral sex, using the toilet in an ice chest and whatever dated dose of crudity Stifler blurts out.

There’s an interesting but obvious contrast scene between the “wild boys” of yesteryear and the drugs, sex and “Party Rock” teens of today. That nails “American Reunion” in just a few moments of screen time.

How can a bunch of sad, sentimental 30somethings be edgy in the age of “Project X” and “Superbad”? They can’t.

And the struggle — undertaken by a cast of (mostly) desperate actors (Tara Reid, John Cho, Mena Suvari and Natasha Lyonne make token appearances) whose careers peaked with these movies — shows.

But there’s still “one time, at band camp.” There’s still a hint of whimsy in the father-son scenes between Eugene Levy and Biggs, still a little brassy broad humor in the return of “Stifler’s Mom” (Jennifer Coolidge). But mostly, watching folks in this age range get tanked and make bad decisions isn’t nostalgic. It’s just sad.

Just like a real reunion, in other words.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Entertainment
  • image_preview.cgi.jpg Roger Moore's Bond had serious fun

    "I never do this," David Horowitz, a public relations executive for ABC, said as he picked up British actor Roger Moore at Kennedy Airport. "Can I have your autograph for my son?" It was 1986, and Moore was in New York City to do some publicity for the network. A year earlier, he had starred, at age 58, in "A View to a Kill."

    October 8, 2012 1 Photo

  • Foreign Policy: Battlestar Galactica got space warfare right. Finally.

    Last month, Small Wars Journal managing editor Robert Haddick asked whether new technology has rendered aircraft carriers obsolete. Well, not everyone thinks so, especially in science-fiction, where "flat tops" still rule in TV shows like "Battlestar Galactica."

    October 2, 2012

  • Eighth-grade NPS musicians to perform

    Norman Public Schools will present its 8th Grade Orchestra Festival at 7:00 p.m. Thursday at Nancy O’Brian Center for the performing arts.

    September 25, 2012

  • summer jam Turn Down The Heat Tour closes out the Summer

    Ken Talton wants it to be a giant date night. One in which people will get dressed up for a night on the town and enjoy some good music from the past and today.
    That is the premise behind Summer Jam Music Fest III’s “Turn Down The Heat Tour.”

    September 21, 2012 1 Photo

  • A guide to the movies

    OPENING IN HOLLYWOOD THIS WEEK

    June 20, 2012

  • Upcoming show at Depot Gallery

    Seven members of the art faculty of St. Gregory’s University in Shawnee will display their prints, paintings and photographs in the Depot Gallery next weekend....

    May 4, 2012

  • Sharing the Art with Norman

    Sometimes, when Sue Schofield is painting, she listens to music. Other times, it’s TV news. Still, at times, she is so absorbed in what she’s doing she hears nothing at all. And then there are days she only hears the gentle hum of the ...

    May 4, 2012

  • Welcome Home Weekend

    Thousands of Oklahoma men and women donate their time with the U.S. military every year, and nearly just as many go without thanks....

    May 4, 2012

  • Van Darien to grace Midway Concert Series

    Texas singer/songwriter Van Darien is bringing her message-packed music to the Midway Concert Series next week....

    May 4, 2012

  • ‘How now Mad Cow’

    “Going Bovine” by Libba Bray is, at its barest, a modern re-imagining of Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote.” And it’s fantastic....

    May 4, 2012