American Reunion (2012)

After nine years can American Pie reunite its characters with the audience or will they be left feeling estranged?

With Jim and Michelle’s life not going as well as they had hoped they return to East Great Falls for their high school reunion. Unfortunately for Jim returning to his hometown means he returns to his awkward, accident prone younger self.

Managing to return Jim to where he was in the first film, having an attractive high school girl wanting to have sex with him, pushes him to make the same stupid mistakes he made in his youth. The performance of Jason Biggs as Jim is the strongest he has managed in the franchise and the scenes where he is trying to get his father to get out of his slump creates a role reversal which brings the best out of both Biggs and Eugene Levy.

Most of the characters have a small character arc, some more interesting than others; unfortunately Kevin’s is one of the more forgettable characters due to his storyline of having feelings for his ex becoming extremely similar to Oz’s but with less comedy, less engaging characters and a far less satisfying conclusion. The most interesting small story comes from the MILF Guys, played by John Cho and Justin Isfeld, whose scene of reconciliation is created entertainingly by managing to communicate by only using the word MILF to describe their emotions.

But stealing the show is Seann William Scott who manages to bring more emotion to the role of Stifler than in previous films. His experience working with actors like Burt Reynolds seems to have improved his performance dramatically with the scene where he finally decides he can let go of his childish past best showing the transition he has made from a side character in the first film to an integral part of the group.

Returning to a franchise that had already been wrapped up gave this film a hard task but fortunately this film manages to out shine its immediate predecessor to become a worthy part of the franchise.