American Pie 2 (2001)

Bigger and badder, but surprisingly no pastries were harmed.

After a year apart – attending different schools, meeting different people – the guys rent a beach house and vow to make this the best summer ever. As it turns out, whether that will happen or not has a lot to do with the girls.

The original is by far a classic by all means and a favorite of mine so when I was going to see this one again, I was expecting something all the same but still enjoyable enough to not hate. Thankfully, I didn’t hate it this time around but damn is it like all other sequels.

The one element about sequels is that they always do everything that they did with the original, but instead do more of that because the more the merrier, right? Well, in some cases it works here but other times, I think they really dragged on with this flick and it’s jokes. The first one was crude, but at least the crudeness came in and did its thing and made me laugh. Here, they came in, lingered around for awhile and waited till the joke was practically dead in the water and then they just gave up and went onto another scene. I can’t be too surprised considering most Hollywood sequels do this but still, it’s something that’s noticeable right away.

I’ll also point out that everything else from the characters, to the plots, to the relationships, all seemed a bit under-developed with the exception of the main relationship between Jim and Michelle. I already knew all of these characters for what all that they are and were from the first flick, so I didn’t need that much character development but there was barely any of that and instead of actually focusing on these characters, the film felt it was more important to just focus on the gross-out gags that go on way too long sometimes. And I don’t know if it was me, but did anybody else feel like all of this partying could have been much more exciting than it actually was? Then again, it’s just a thought so don’t mind me.

However, as much ish as I may be talking here I still had an enjoyable with this flick mainly because the parts that did work, really worked. There are a couple of gross-out gags that really made me laugh and there are plenty of other moments full of comedy that made me laugh just because it’s a bunch of young dudes partying, drinking, and trying to pick up girls. It’s all in good fun and there’s a couple of moments that are very memorable such as when Jim gets glue and lube mixed up, and another time where Stifler and Jim have to do a little version of “shadow” between a couple of “lesbians”. It’s all funny, trust me, even if it does seem a bit too much like a Farrelly Brothers comedy.

I also liked the focus on Jim and Michelle’s relationship that I thought made the film so much better every time they were on-screen together and I was glad that they actually did decide to go down this road. It’s such a sweet, little romance that works because they are both geeks and it’s just great to see two geeks in love even if the one is a total freak in bed and the other is just a dude who can’t seem to do anything right when it comes to getting it on. But it’s not all about the sex, it’s all about the love between two people that matters and you could feel it with this flick and it sure is believable.

As for the cast, everybody here has returned and all do great jobs with their own, respective roles. Seann William Scott gets a lot more screen-time here as Stifler and made me laugh just about every time and is definitely that one kid you would invite down to the shore with you because he has all of the moolah in the world. However, it’s great to see everybody all be friendly with each other once again and it totally serves up the whole point about this film about how we all change but we should all stick together and keep in touch. Maybe there was no point to this flick after all, but it’s always good to look in a lot more than you would expect.

Consensus: American Pie 2 features an over-abundance of what the first one did and starts to drag a lot, but the moments that worked, really made me laugh, and it was just also great to see the cast all back together doing what they do best with these likable characters.

5.5/10=Rental!!