American Wedding

There was a better quote than that, but I, of course, forgot it five minutes after I heard it. I hate my stupid memory. I know that it’s really not cool to like the third in a series. You know, Return Of The Jedi isn’t nearly as good as Star Wars or Empire, Godfather III sucked, Scream 3 was a real letdown, Alien3 was a piece of shit, Friday The 13th Part 3 was just an excuse to have an eyeball fly at people wearing funny glasses…ok, that one’s true. So is the one about Alien3. But Godfather III was only really bad because of Sophia Coppola and Jedi had some of the best sequences of the series.

But here’s the deal, when a series is so centered on really likable characters and not thrills, special effects or big family meetings where people get killed, you have the chance to have a good third and (hopefully) final part of a series. Especially if those characters are written by the same people who created them and turned them into such cool people to hang around with for a few hours.

Luckily the American Pie kids are a lot of fun to hang out with. The first two movies were no great pieces of cinematic art (in fact the first one is actually pretty rough as far as the cinema of it all goes), but they are a lot of fun. And they show these kids growing from the last days of high school to the end of the first year of college.

Now, though, they’re through with school. Some have drifted apart and are not even mentioned in this film. (Oz (Chris Klein), Vicky (Tara Reid), Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) and Heather (Mena Suvari) are nowhere to be seen. Did they really have something better to do?) But the good friends stick around through it all.

And now one of their rank is getting married. Jim (Jason Biggs) is popping the question to Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) and his buddies Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) are there for him all the way. Unfortunately, so is Stifler (Seann William Scott). No matter how the guys have tried to hide the wedding from the Stiffmeister, he still shows up at every turn.

And when I say “every turn” I mean EVERY FUCKING TURN. How is this guy everywhere? They go to the florist, he’s there. They go to a friend’s place, he’s there. They go to Chicago, he’s there. They go to Disney World, he’s there. He just shows up! There’s a LOT of Stiffy in this movie.

Anyway, the usual antics ensue on Jim and Michelle’s trip down the aisle. Jim is caught with his pants down and Michelle under the table, Stifler almost keeps Michelle from getting the dress of her dreams, Stifler has a dance-off at a gay bar (one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie), and yadda, yadda, yadda.

And of course there’s nudity. Not from any of the main cast (although Jim’s butt is on display a few more times than is really necessary), but a couple of strippers do feature prominently in one scene.

And, through it all, the characters all stay true to themselves and to us. These guys wear these characters like rubber gloves by now.

Yes, Jim is funny with all of his unfortunate antics and Finch is funny with his high-brow-ness and Kevin is…well, Kevin’s just kinda there. Always has been. He’s not one of the more interesting characters in this series, but he’s a good friend, so he’s not obtrusively uninteresting. But this is really almost Stifler’s movie. He’s WAY overdone at first. When he shows up in the school bus (he’s an assistant coach at their old high school) and just starts crashing the engagement party, things start to go a little too far. Not as far as taste goes, but as far as he goes. He’s just WAY too obnoxious. When he meets Michelle’s sister (isn’t this kind of like finding out the Buffy has a sister?) Cadence (January Jones) you really want her to end up with Finch because Stifler is such an asshole.

Of course there’s always Jim’s Dad, Eugene Levy. This guy’s on a role. I want to be him when I grow up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him not be funny. Even the movie is crappy (Bringing Down The House, anyone?) he’s hilarious in it. Can’t wait to check out Dumb & Dumberer just to see if even he can save it. And add fellow Christopher Guest buddy Fred Willard (he plays Michelle’s dad who thinks that Jim is a boob and Stifler is a gentleman) to the mix and you’ve got a Second City cast that gives the parental generation some class and a cool quotient that can’t be registered. Stifler’s Mom (Jennifer Coolidge, also from Best In Show and A Mighty Wind) makes an appearance at the very end, but she’s always been kind of underused in these films. Very funny woman, though, and she does a lot with so little.

And I love Alyson Hannigan. There’s something about that girl that exudes intelligence even when she’s playing as dumb as a brick. I seriously wonder if she’s like that in real life. Reading some of her quotes on the IMDb, I think she might be. That Alexis Denisof is a pretty lucky guy. Damn him.

I really liked all three of these flicks. The kids have grown up and so have the movies. Yeah, there’s still a lot of gross-out humor, but the situations they get themselves into are more mature now than trying to get laid. They’re actually trying to be happy, productive people and find the partners of their dreams. I hope Adam Herz doesn’t decide to write a fourth one just to make a little cash (although I’m sure that’s what spawned this one). He’s got a great closer here and I’ll be happy to just revisit the American Pie gang in re-watches instead of new adventures. They’re real characters who deserve to be remembered as such and not as derivative cardboard cutouts, which I’m sure they would devolve into with another dip in the well.

Interesting side note: this movie was directed by Jesse Dylan, son of Bob. Bob’s got five kids. What are the other three up to?