American Wedding

A select group of your friends from Great Falls High are horny and rarin’ to make you laugh again. This time around, Jim asks Michelle to marry him and as the duo set out to get hitched, their parents meet, their friends prepare for the festivities and a new girl, the bride-to-be’s younger sister, joins the fray in order to beef up the film’s paper-thin screenplay. Stifler ensues!!

They should have just given Stifler his own movie or called this third installment in the AMERICAN PIE series STIFLER’S REVENGE or something, because without him, this film would be nothing more than a series of montages, musical interludes and generally unsuccessful comedic set pieces, all organized around see-through, uninvolving and unbelievable “dramatic” sequences in which nobody really seems to connect in any way, shape or form. And how many times can one franchise re-use the same jokes before the humor just isn’t funny anymore? (Finch having the hots for Stifler’s mom is so “passé” in my eyes) Furthermore, I don’t think I’ve seen any film as zippily edited as this one. Almost every scene felt like it ended a few seconds too early, and before you can say “Where the fuck did the rest of the cast go and how come the film doesn’t acknowledge any of them whatsoever?”, you’re riding along a basic plotline mined with about 4-6 major humorous scenarios, a couple of which are actually quite funny, but most of which just struck the “been there, done that” chord with me. Then again, maybe I’ve just become too cynical watching all these movies since there were a handful of scenes in this film that did make me laugh out loud, although pretty much every single one of them featured the character better known as the “Stifmeister”, the man, the myth, the legend…played once again with utmost perfection by the underrated Seann William Scott. Seriously…give this character his own friggin’ starring vehicle already! Forget Alyson “boring” Hannigan, Jason “I’m playing the straight man now” Biggs and every other no-name actor who returns in this sequel and focus on the one character who continues to provide laughs, scene in and scene out…Stifler! (“I told you that guy wanted to fuck me, man” – “It’s on like Donkey Kong, beeyatch!”)

If you enjoyed Scott’s performances in either of the previous PIE installments, plop your bucks down for this flick and crack up as he struts it up in a gay night club, pretends to be a “nice guy” to get the girl, takes the “eat shit” adage to a whole new level and swears as much as anyone in any movie this year. The film also showcases some sweet T&A with a wonderful package of two hot-ass chicks (Nikkie Ziering & Amanda Swisten), one dressed in full S&M cop gear, and the other in a sexy, European maid’s uniform. Both girls are about as delicious as they come, feature their titties in full-force, as well as their sculped g-string behinds and provide the film with one of its few truly inspired sequences. Eugene Levy and Fred Willard are also sporadically humorous as the respective fathers of the wedding couple, but for the most part, the film really doesn’t generate a consistent amount of laughs other than Scott’s character, drops in energy during its second half as things suddenly turn a little more “dramatic” as a scene featuring “dead flowers” seems to suck the entire livelihood out of everyone in the wedding party (dudes…calm the fuck down…they’re just flowers!!) and ultimately goes for one too many “easy” jokes which just didn’t do it for me. Having said that, as per any comedy, it might all depend on your mood as well; consider one specific lady sitting next to me who could not have laughed any louder during pretty much every scene in this movie– to the point that I wanted to drill her in the face with my left elbow…but maybe that’s just the salsa talking. On the whole though, I think I already said this in my review of the previous installment of this series, but the gas has simply ran out on these folks and I hope to God that they all look in the mirror, recognize their 90210-age range brackets and respectively move on to create more original and humorous motion pictures instead of wringing every dry penny out of this rehashed franchise. Please no AMERICAN HONEYMOON…

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian