MOVIE REVIEWS: AMERICAN REUNION

Most of the reviews of American Reunion trash the film as if it were a stale, leftover pie, which, in a sense it is. It’s a ten-year follow-up to 1999’s American Pie, 2001’s American Pie 2, and 2003’s American Wedding. And even the less brutal reviews hardly serve as recommendations. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example, while remarking that “it delivers a lot of nice laughs,” wonders whether someone who didn’t see the original films might not feel “out to sea” with this one. “If you liked the earlier films, I suppose you gotta see this one,” he writes. “Otherwise, I dunno.” Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer simply summarizes the movie and gives no clue about whether he liked it or not. Peter Howell, in the Toronto Star appears to praise the film when he calls it “the funniest issue yet from the American Pie franchise factory.” Then he adds: “Which isn’t saying all that much, given the low standards for laughter in this continuing teen sex farce.” Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune allows that “now and then the movie rouses itself to deliver.” Likewise, A.O. Scott in the New York Times remarks, “It has some good moments, but it goes on too long, and not enough happens that is likely to create new memories.” Now to the really negative reviews. “The entire film is a mistake,” Amy Biancolli writes in the San Francisco Chronicle. “(Directors) Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg direct with a bluntness, witlessness and sloppiness that only brings out the chasmal vacancy of the script, in which nothing happens and no one seems to be having any fun.” Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe tears the movie apart, then concludes, “The directors don’t know how to make this new plot funny or infectious.” Michael O’Sullivan grants it one and a half stars, calling it “aggressively crass and not especially funny.” And Lou Lumenick’s remarks in the New York Post are best summed up in the headline of his review: “American Why?”