To the Next Step!

As with its predecessor, the first American Pie, sequel American Pie 2 ws a massive success. On a budget of $30 Mil (in part due to the success each of the stars had because of and after the first film, so they could ask for more money to do the sequel), the second round of pie made $287.5 Mil, a series high. This gave Universal hopes of being able to make a massive franchise, anticipating that audiences were wanting more and more slices of pie and would come back time and again. The studio was at least partially right on that fact.

A third follow-up was immediately greenlit, with the writer of the first two films, Adam Herz, and the production team from the sequel all returning to usher in the third film of the franchise, American Wedding. With this film, the series creators understand that it’s better to focus on what worked in the previous film while ditching everything that wasn’t. Thus where the first film had four main leads, along with all their related characters, this sequel is really all about Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) with only a couple of Jim’s friends returning as well.

This does create a better, more interesting film than the previous adventure for these characters. While there are some weird little quirks that come from this focused, pared down approach (where is Oz in all of this?), overall this third adventure is tighter, lighter, and even funnier than the previous two slices of American Pie. Oh, and it doesn’t have nearly as much questionable humor or illegal situations that really should have landed multiple characters in prison, which is a massive win for this franchise.

On the eve of their graduation, Jim and Michelle go out for a nice dinner to celebrate. While Michelle thinks it’s just for graduation, Jim uses the opportunity to propose to Michelle after three happy years dating. The two clearly love each other, despite her being a nympho and him a pervert, but they’re obviously meant for each other and she naturally accepts (after first getting caught giving him a blowjob at the restaurant, leading to a very awkward, and funny, situation).

Now, with Summer ahead of them, Jim and Michelle, along with their friends and family, get into gear to plan the perfect wedding. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) are there to help keep Jim focused and get him what he needs. Jim’s dad (Eugene Levy) provides his moral support, as only he can. We get to meet Michelle’s family – father Harold (Fred Willard), mother Mary (Deborah Rush), and sister Cadence (January Jones) – who think she’s an angel and want only the best for her. And, of course, there’s Stifler (Seann William Scott), providing the gratuitous naughtiness that is his primary personality trait. With all these people pulling the happy couple in every direction, can this perfect wedding even happen?

In some ways this film is a big improvement over the previous two American Pie films. Realistically both of the previous films were fairly plotless, consisting mostly of skits and scenes that propelled the characters forward, to a certain extent, but they weren’t very deep when it came to story. That is similarly true here, in American Wedding, in that most of the meat of the film is a collection of funny scenes. At the same time, though, with fewer characters to worry about (Kevin is a backup player, effectively, while Oz, Vicky, Heather, Jessica, and Nadia aren’t even seen at all) it allows the film to better develop what plot strands it does have.

Jim is worried that Michelle’s parents won’t like him, which is backed up by the fact they say, to his face, they aren’t sure he’s a good enough man to be Michelle’s husband. This leads to a series of moments where Jim tries to prove himself to them, which all naturally fail or go very off the wall. This plays well with the primary character trait of Jim, that he’s nervous and neurotic and prone to seeing his big moments go horribly off the rails, and it allows Biggs to play to his comedic strength perfectly. A lot of humor is mined from this plotline, and it works.

But while that’s effectively our A-plot, I would say more time is spent not on Jim, Michelle, and their developing wedding than on the effective B-plot: Stifler and Finch competing for the affections of a woman. Cadence catches both of their eyes, being very pretty, so Stifler is interested in her, and also very intellectual, so Finch is smitten as well. Hearing that she wants a good guy that can treat her right, Stifler puts on a persona modeled on Finch, pretending to be a nice, intellectual guy. Finch, meanwhile, overhears that Cadence wants someone that can get freaky with her. Plus, he sees Stifler pretending to be an intellectual, so Finch goes the other route, mimicking Stifler’s normal persona, and even calling himself the “Finchmeister”.

Naturally, there’s a lot of humor mined from this situation, with both characters playing against type and finding the whole situation to be very awkward. Much focus is given to Stifler in this plotline, with him getting plenty of great moments here (and, really, throughout the film). It’s pretty clear that the creators understood Stifler was their biggest draw, so they tried to give him more time, and more to do, here than before. It’s great for the humor of the story as Stifler does get all the best moments and has plenty of laugh-out-loud sequences… but it does mean his plotline doesn’t work as well as it could.

Effectively, the film gives its focus over to Stifler in the Stifler vs. Finch storyline, more often than not. Any time Cadence has a chance to hang out with either guy, she ends up hanging out with Stifler. Finch and Cadence barely spend any time together, and there’s no real connection between them, unlike what develops between her and Stifler. While the film tries to build it up as a big climax, “who will she choose and how will she get there?”, in the end the choice is obvious to everyone but the characters, and that’s because Finch just doesn’t get a chance. It undercuts the story a little, but when everything going on around them is so funny, it’s hard to really fault the film for it.

And then there are the little things that stuck out to me when I watched the film again, specifically for this review. I can understand why many side characters from previous films aren’t here. While it would have been nice to have cameos from Vicky or Jessica or even Nadia as guests at the wedding itself, I can understand they would all have required money to come back for a third film, and that probably wasn’t in the budget. What is weird is that the two MILF guys, John (John Cho) and Justin (Justin Isfeld) do come back to be ushers. Why these guys, and no one else? We get them, but not Oz, one of Jim’s best friends? At the very least Oz should show up for the wedding, but not only is he not there, he’s not even mentioned at all in the film. It’s really strange.

I also wonder how much this wedding had to have cost. Jim’s family don’t own the biggest house, a modest three bedroom that, in the early 2000s, was common for a middle class family to have. We would assume Michelle’s family is the same, since she grew up in the neighborhood and attended the same high school as Jim. The wedding, though, is lavish, held at a fancy resort, and it’s decorated out to the nines. Then you consider that the wedding goes through two cakes, due to Jim’s pubes ending up on the first, and two full sets of flowers for the ceremony and reception, because Stifler ruined the first set, and it boggles the mind how either family, or even both, could afford this big to do. While the films before had some grounding in middle class life, this doesn’t feel like a middle class wedding, and that stuck out to me more than it probably should.

Still, setting these bits aside, what drives the film is heart. At its core American Wedding is a sweet film about two very nice perverts falling in love and getting hitched. It nicely carried through story beats and characters (that were needed) from the previous films and gives us a lovely capper for the franchise to this point. It manages to be both a gross-out sex comedy and a sweet romance at the same time, and I don’t think any other series could have pulled off that feat so effectively. If the film series had stopped with three I don’t think anyone would have complained because this is a fitting end for the franchise.

But then, over in the direct-to-video bin, the series carried on. Two years later Universal released the first of the American Pie Presents films, and we all had to take a trip to Band Camp once again…