It's pie Jim but not as we know it
American Pie Presents Band Camp (2005)
Despite enjoying the original American Pie trilogy it has to be said that American Pie Presents Band Camp is not a patch on them and although many consider it to be a fourth movie in the series it is actually the start of a branch off series called American Pie Presents which is more akin to National Lampoon's rather than American Pie. Although American Pie Presents Band Camp is not as good as the originals it's not terrible, in fact it's quite sweet in places, vulgar in others and just takes a bit of getting use to that it is not a proper continuation of the original successful franchise.
When Steve Stifler's younger brother Matt is caught red handed creating mayhem with the school bands instruments, guidance counsellor Sherman decides that it is the perfect opportunity to get his own back on the Stifler family and gives Matt no option but to attend summer Band camp with all those he thinks are band geeks or be expelled. But Matt spots an opportunity to emulate his brother's success as a Porn producer and sets about creating an undercover porn flick featuring the band geeks shower activities. Except he didn't account on falling for the leader of the schools band as well as the advice from Mr Levenstein who is deputising as the camp counsellor for Jim and Michelle.
The thing with American Pie Presents Band Camp is that you watch it expecting it to continue on from American Pie: The Wedding both in storyline, characters and humour but sadly it doesn't. Most of those characters which we have come to love don't appear in this movie, the humour is much more tamer and a little bit more child like plus it doesn't really follow on from where we left off, instead branching out in a new direction with new characters. These are the reasons why American Pie Presents Band Camp is often slammed by critics and reviewers and there is a certain amount of fairness in these criticisms.
This time around the storyline is much weaker, more akin to what you would expect from a traditional romantic comedy with the main characters falling in and out of love etc etc. All pretty much predictable and gives cause for American Pie Presents Band Camp to feel a lot sweeter than the raucous American Pie movies. But being American Pie the storyline still revolves around disastrous sexual encounters, gross out humour and questionable comedy. Except everything is a lot tamer, the gross out comedy is nowhere as near offensive and a lot more humour seems to revolve around innuendo rather than actual visual comedy. At times it felt like that American Pie Presents Band Camp was being made to target a new younger audience than those who had grown up watching the original American Pie movies.
The storyline isn't helped by the fact we are introduced to so many new characters which try too hard to replicate those from the original series. In the main role is Tad Hilgenbrink who plays Steve Stifler's younger brother Matt, obviously many of the vulgar characteristics of Steve rub off on Matt but he just doesn't have that sadistic side to carry them off properly. Plus they have tried to combine the clumsiness of Jim into the character and this makes it completely wrong. Opposite Tad is Arielle Kebbel who plays Elyse the love interest and supposedly a major band geek yet doesn't come over geeky at all rather a little too het up. The thing is although I didn't really like the new characters, and there are a few of them, I did quite like the predictable romance between Matt and Elyse the pairing worked surprisingly well.
Thankfully they did try to bring back a couple of characters including a bit part for Chris Owen as Sherman and also more importantly a bigger role for Eugene Levy as Mr. Levenstein. Eugene Levy is really what makes American Pie Presents Band Camp bearable for those who preferred the originals as he continues to give his awkward fatherly advice to those around him in particular Matt as he struggles to encompass all that is good about Band Camp.
Basically American Pie Presents Band Camp is disappointing especially for those who were hoping for a decent fourth instalment of the original franchise, but it's not terrible. It is a lot tamer and seems to target a brand new audience but does have a few laughs and memorable moments. Plus it has Eugene Levy who is the real star of the movie.
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- Title: American Pie Presents Band Camp
- Year: 2005
- Length: 94 mins
- Certificate: 15
- Genre: Comedy
- Director: Steve Rash
- Cast: Tad Hilgenbrink, Arielle Kebbel, Eugene Levy, Jason Earles, Crystle Lightning, Jun Hee Lee, Matt Barr, Chris Owen
- The Movie Scene Rating:
