It's Wedding Pie Time
American Pie: The Wedding (2003)
Despite often bordering on the gross I liked the original "American Pie", I even thought the second in this series was okay, but I have to say that this third instalment is a disappointment as it sinks lower when it comes to what is funny and what isn't. It's not all bad as "American Pie: The Wedding" attempts to step away from just being a carbon copy of either the first or second movie in the series but feels slightly lacking and at times feels quite laboured.
In "American Pie: The Wedding" we see that the romance between hapless Jim and band geek Michelle has blossomed and are preparing to tie the knot. Jim's old buddies Kevin and Finch are on hand to help with the preparations but are joined by the eternally obnoxious Steve Stifler who takes the opportunity to have a crack at Michelle's lovely younger sister. Of course thing's never run smoothly as wedding preparations proceed and all will certainly not go to plan.
Part of the trouble with "American Pie: The Wedding" is that the first two films set high expectations for the third to try and live up to. But where as American Pie 1 & 2 were both funny and delivered a semi decent message, "American Pie: The Wedding" fails on both accounts. It certainly is a case of the franchise had run out of steam before this third instalment came along. What this means is that the humour stoops to new lows of grossness to try and make you laugh whilst any message is completely lost amongst all the frivolity.
The storyline is a natural progression for the series and I honestly believe that if "American Pie: The Wedding" had been more successful we may have seen a fourth instalment of the original franchise with Jim and Michelle having children and settling in to married life. But instead we ended up with American Pie lite or as it is officially known "American Pie presents" which fails to even get close to the standards of the original. But the storyline to "American Pie: The Wedding" does try to step away from what we saw in the first two films and is not that bad. With Jim rushing around to make the wedding perfect for Michelle as well as impress his future in-laws there is plenty of decent scenes which deliver the intentional hilarity we associate with the hapless Jim.
But the problem is that "American Pie: The Wedding" struggles to be really funny. More and more of the jokes in "American Pie: The Wedding" verge on the ridiculous and gross, often going past the line of being humorous and falling into the realms of being cringe worthy. I don't mind gross out humour but more and more of the jokes here left me feeling sick rather than entertained. It's not all bad and there are some amusing set pieces including the boys ending up unintentionally in a gay night club where Stifler enthrals us with a cheesy but hilarious dance off. But for the most a lot of the jokes, mainly crude and unimaginative, fail to really deliver as they did in the first two films.
"American Pie: The Wedding" also seems to lack that meaningful message which the first two films delivered. At the end of American Pie 1 & 2 the group of friends had learned something about life, but any attempts to do the same in "American Pie: The Wedding" are lost completely and so it makes it feel like the film is missing one of those key elements which made American Pie a more rounded film.
As for the characters and cast well only about half of them return and this does put a bit of a damper on things. Without the likes of Chris Klein as Oz, Mena Suvari as Heather and Tara Reid as Vicky it just doesn't feel the same. Thankfully those characters which do return do a good job, with Jason Biggs still making a complete fool of himself and Seann William Scott doing a marvelous job of being vile. Plus of course we see Eugene Levy become more prominent as Jim's dad Mr. Levenstein who gets funnier every time I see him.
On top of the original characters we get introduced to a few new ones, mainly those in Michelle's family. This means we get to watch the pairing of Fred Willard and Deborah Rush who go someway to make up for the lack of the original characters.
Sadly for me "American Pie: The Wedding" is nowhere as enjoyable as the first two films in the series. It lacks the fun and meaning of the first two and ends up relying too heavily on outrageous gross out comedy to try and get laughs, often failing because they push the boundaries of taste too far. In reality it's not a fitting end to the original series of American Pie films and although I was disappointed I would welcome a fourth instalment if they could get the entire old team back together and regain those elements which made the original such good fun.
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- Title: American Pie: The Wedding
- Year: 2003
- Length: 96 mins
- Certificate: 15
- Genre: Comedy
- Director: Jesse Dylan
- Cast: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Eugene Levy, Seann William Scott, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Thomas Ian Nicholas, January Jones, Molly Cheek, Deborah Rush, Fred Willard
- The Movie Scene Rating:
