|
Going through the motions
[Times photo: Universal Studios]
Jim (Jason Biggs, right) can’t count on his father (Eugene Levy) for good advice about girls in American Pie 2.
|
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 9, 2001
Innocent hilarity has aged into embarrassing fumbling for the actors and the audience in American Pie 2.
|
 |
Love is smuttier the second time around in American Pie 2, the sequel to a crudely sweet 1999 comedy about goofballs losing their virginity. The guys are completing their first year of college but haven't learned anything.
Jim (Jason Biggs) is still a sexual fumbler with a father (Eugene Levy) giving dated advice. Oz (Chris Klein) remains a bland hunk hung up on Heather (Mena Suvari). Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and Finch (Eddie Kay Thomas) pine for their part 1 lovers, and Stifler (Seann William Scott) is perpetually and proudly horny.
They're sharing a crazy beach-house summer, still hungering for sex by whatever means. Phone sex, masturbation, voyeurism, everything except the real thing because they can't get it. Jim's foreign exchange fling Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) will visit soon, and he needs practice to satisfy her in bed. That's the plot, for those who need one.
American Pie 2 plods through a series of sexual embarrassments that simply aren't as endearing this time. Once again, having sex ruins a nice relationship, this time with moviegoers. The first film was outrageous but with a kind, knowing heart. Boys were naive and amusingly eager. Good girls were celebrated, if not celibate by the end credits.
In the sequel, everyone knows what they're doing, so getting it done isn't as much fun. Oz and Heather's relationship that progressed innocently in the original is now phone sex fodder. Jim's first lover Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) has been exposed as a kinky band-camper, eliminating the surprise that earned her explosive laughs in the first film. Finch's dabbling in tantric sexercises and Stifler's aggressive promiscuity are scene-killers.
Low-lights include Jim super-gluing his hand to his genitals and a deadening sequence when the boys are urged to kiss and fondle each other by women they believe are lesbians while the town listens through crossed cell phone frequencies. Jim's posing as a mentally challenged musician would be offensive if it weren't so dull. Nobody mentions or obviously practices safe sex.
Director James B. Rogers doesn't care how these raunchy episodes, crudely written by Adam Herz, fit together. The rhythm of American Pie 2 is all wrong, with dead spots anticipating laugh breaks while sabotaging the pace to earn them. Scenes end with a dirty joke, then another begins with the same characters discussing a new development to get them to the next dirty joke.
Acting skill isn't a priority, and few of the performers appear interested, anyway. At least not actors such as Suvari and Klein, who have progressed to better things since the original. They're here because they have to be. American Pie 2 feels like a contract fulfillment for everyone involved except the audience.
American Pie 2
Grade: D
Director: James B. Rogers
Cast: Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Chris Klein, Shannon Elizabeth, Tara Reid, Alyson Hannigan, Eugene Levy, Natasha Lyonne, Mena Suvari
Screenplay: Adam Herz
Rating: R; crude sexual situations, profanity, nudity
Running time: 99 min.
Back to Weekend
© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111
|
