‘American Reunion’ says goodbye to a franchise

American Reunion is the long awaited fourth installment (eighth if you count the four direct-to-DVD films) of the beloved American Pie series. The film stars Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy and many more fan-favorites. American Reunion is rated R and presented in 2D.

The film opens by showing us an all-too-familiar couple, Jim and Michelle Levinstein, as parents. It continues to show us how other fan-favorite characters are up to, after all of these years. When they all decide to go to their 13th high school reunion, which they joke about by saying that they’re happy that they finally got around to doing the reunion, the old group gets together and starts to have fun. They realize that life isn’t quite the same as it used to be, though. Meeting up with old romances doesn’t help their mindset, either. Throughout the course of the film, the group goes through what could be considered a shared mid-life crisis.

The film keeps with the style of the series by being extremely raunchy with its humor and showing some nudity in humorous situations. It goes further than usual by showing frontal male nudity. It’s brief, but the camera seems to focus on it for its full length of time. It fit well with the moment and added humor, due to the situation at hand.

Another thing that was added to the film was the usage of marijuana. I’ve noticed a vast increase in the usage of marijuana in adult comedies throughout the past several years. I found the fact that they did this in the film was an interesting addition. It was one of the many things that showed how times have changed. Times changing seems to be a huge point of the film, hence my interest in the addition of marijuana.

For me, the most important part of the series has always been the serious relationship between the characters. This relationship has been known to bring out a sense of drama in the films. It’s what makes me see that the films are very well written. The fact that this element was so strong in American Reunion is what makes me love this film as much as I do.

Having said all of this, I think that the film should have given some of the minor characters a little more screen time. I’m curious about what they’ve been up to. Seeing as this is my only complaint about the film, I say that any true fan of the series should see American Reunion, and who knows? Maybe the DVD will have some more scenes with certain minor characters.