Back to band camp (American Pie 2 (DVD))

Member Name: hugon

Product:	American Pie 2 (DVD)
Date:	07/10/01 (390 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Real laugh out loud humour, Great performances from the entire cast, Alyson Hannigan!

Disadvantages: Humour probably not to everyones taste, Not much Mena Suvari in this film

Sequels are always a risky business, especially if the first film has been a success. Trying to do something new with the same group of characters always leaves you with the risk of repeating the same formula over and over again; leaving the audience disappointed the second time around. I was in two minds about American Pie 2, I loved the first one, but the rake of imitators like Road Trip left me feeling cold, so it was with a certain wariness I approached the cinema for the first preview showing of American Pie 2, hoping it could live up to the expectations the first one had left me with.

The story centres around the same 4 guys again - Jim (Jason Biggs), Oz (Chris Klein), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), but this time Stifler (Sean William Scott) is featured much more in the proceedings. The girls take a much lesser part in this film than in the first one, Vicki (Tara Reid) has only a few scenes, Heather (Mena Suvari), has a similarly short screen time. Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) is still a minor character, but pops up slightly more than in the first film, and Michele (Alyson Hannigan) is the only real female character to increase her screen time since the first film.

The premise of the film is very simple - the guys have come to the end of their first year at college, and return home to find it a little dull compared to college life, so they decide to rent a house down by the sea and work for the summer before throwing the party to end all parties to end the summer on a high. Of course, these are four teenage lads, and people who watched the first film will know that these guys have a pretty much one track mind.

Before I start, I should mention that if you haven?t seen the first film, it's well worth renting the video before you go and see this in the cinema, as this assumes knowledge of the characters and the situation from the first film, and you may be in the dark about some of the jokes if you missed ou
t the first time round. Some of the things I mention in this opinion may also spoil the first film if you have yet to see it. Saying that, the film has plenty that is independent of the first film, and if this is anyone's first experience of American Pie, they should settle into the routine very quickly. After all, it's not as if there is a major plotline to follow, puerile jokes are the order of the day.

I thought the script was worked very well. Characters like Oz, who where really developed in the first film are given quite a back seat in the film, and you feel like the film could quite easily have coped without him being there, at times you forget he?s in the film. He's still very much in love with Heather, who also has a minor role in the film as they try to keep the spark in their relationship while she is on a summer study course in Europe. There wasn't much more you could do with these characters after the first film, and I feel it was wise working it like this rather than having Oz reverting to his laddish other self.

Jim is still in pursuit of more sex after losing his virginity at the prom to Michele. He's also still obsessed with Nadia, and more specifically, getting her into bed. Jim, like in the first film is the main character of the film, and as a result has some of the best scenes in the film. He plays the geeky, uptight character superbly, you can almost cringe with embarrassment for the poor guy every time he's on the screen, as he has to live up to the reputation of "that" dalliance with Nadia that happened to be broadcast around the internet. The writers develop the relationship between Jim and Michele a lot more in this film, and you get to see a different side to Michele, one where you get to laugh with her rather than at her. Michele is played brilliantly by the lovely Alyson Hannigan; she's lost the "This one time, at band camp..." catchphrase and is a much better character fo
r it. Jim's father (Eugene Levy, of the amazing caterpillar eyebrows) also pops up again in this film, much to the embarrassment of Jim, as his father tries to relate to Jim, and act "cool" around him, in order to not embarrass him, and of course he ends up making it worse. Eugene Levy has wisely been given some more screen time than in the first film, he's the father you just wouldn't like your friends to meet.

Kevin and Vicki are still trying to come to terms with feeling awkward after the break-up of their relationship in the first film, and you can feel the silence whenever the two are on the screen, they play out the confusion between the two superbly. Kevin is probably the character to have moved on least since the first film, still clinging to the secure life he had in high school with his friends around him, I sympathise with his character a lot, though his naivety can grate after a little while. I would have preferred to seen their relationship after the break-up developed a little more than was shown, I felt it was glossed over a little, and resolved to quickly.

Finch is probably my favourite of the main characters, he's just as obtuse as in the first film and you constantly ask yourself what he's doing with a group of friends like these, he just doesn't seem to fit in, he's back from Japan with a passion for yoga and mediation in search of the perfect orgasm (when he finally gets it). He still yearns for Stifler's mom, much to the annoyance of Stifler, and they have a great relationship throughout the movie, putting each other down, Finch managing to do it a lot more intelligently than Stifler could ever hope for.

Stifler is one of the stars of the show, His testosterone could fill a swimming pool, but his intelligence would struggle to fill a thimble. Sean William Scott has these type of characters down to a fine art, but he surpasses himself in this role, he plays it with such relentle
ss enthusiasm, it's impossible not to laugh out loud almost every time his character is on the film. He might not be smart, but he has some damn funny lines.

I can't identify a bad performance from any of the actors in this film, they are all at the top of their game, and a bright future beckons for them all, especially Sean William Scott, though he has to be careful not to get typecast as loudmouth Stifler characters wherever he goes.

The script is hilarious; I haven't laughed so much in a long time. There is a certain element of recycling of the jokes from the first film, but it doesn't spoil it in any way, it creates an odd sense of feeling at home and familiar with the film. It's balanced well between stupid slapstick and spoken humour, with each character taking a fairly equal amounts of laughs. I feel this film is more based around humour than the first one, which had the tale of the guys growing up going on in the background going on in the background. This film has the same kind of theme, but it's not as immediately as evident as the first film, and the focus isn't placed as squarely on it. This is still the tale of four friends growing up and finding out what the real world is like, all it's hopes and disappointments, and as such, you can identify with what they're feeling, but it's also about having a damn good laugh, and the balance is well struck. It's not like some comedies where its all laugh for the first hour then serious for the last half hour, the balance is maintained throughout, which also keeps the film fresh. One of the best parts of the writing is that the humour isn't obvious, it's worked in a way that you know something is going to happen, but you're kept guessing until it actually happens what it will be, which is a quality that was sadly missing in Road Trip.

If you hated the first film, you'll hate this. If you liked the first one, you'll like this
one too. It's that simple, this type of humour either is your thing or it isn't. It's one of the finest comedies I've seen in a long time, and it easily stands up alongside its predecessor for humour. It's not high class, and if sex jokes don't amuse you, don't go, as you'll hate it. It's rated 15, and that's fair, there is a lot of swearing, some minor nudity, and the theme is fairly sexual throughout.

It probably appeals to quite an audience of late teens to late twenties, it's not exactly highbrow humour, it's very basic and simple, gutter is probably a word that comes to mind. Still, it made me laugh out loud consistently throughout the film, and I didn't notice the time passing at all, which is always a sign of a good film. It's about an hour and three quarters long, which I think is just about right, any longer and it would have dragged a little, any less and it would have been over to quickly. You'll not be bored; the humour comes through quickly over the entire film.

I feel this would be the best place to draw a veil over the American Pie series, I really don't feel they can draw any more mileage out of the characters. They managed to develop them further than the first film, but they've grown up now and I don't feel there's anything more they can do with the characters. One of the final scenes indicated this as well, you feel the writers recognise they have taken the characters as far as they can go as well. I feel a certain sadness if that's the case, but it's better to go out on a high rather than do another sequel that would spoil everything.

The soundtrack is also excellent, well, it appealed to me anyway. It's all the kind of skate-punk music that is all the rage at the moment, form Blink 182 over the opening credits, to the Offspring and Sum 41. The anorak inside me was very excited to hear Green Day on the soundtrack as well, and a b-si
de at that! I need to get out a little more.

This is probably my favourite film of the last year by a long way. I certainly haven't laughed that much in a very, very long time, and I'm considering going to see it again sometime. I feel it would have been a great film to have been released over the summer, it has a very summery feel to it, and it would have been very welcome considering some of the dross we where subjected to this summer. A definite 5 stars from me, roll on the DVD release!

IMDB section:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0252866

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