With 2020 being the year of everyone trying to remember any time prior to this one, I guess it makes sense why we’d have a new American Pie movie eight years after the collective shrug of American Wedding. That doesn’t save it from being a highly disposable follow-up made by people who specialise in highly disposable follow-ups (between the director and writers, we got credits for The Scorpion King 4, Honey 2, Blue Crush 2 and Grand-Daddy Day Care), but in a year that has never failed to make zero sense, I’ll cling to what little I can with this because ‘little’ is about all on offer here.
The whole idea behind this film, of flipping the genders of the original film to make sex comedy less of a bro-y environment, might have been a novel idea about ten years ago. But we already have Booksmart. We already have Blockers. Hell, in the annals of showing women can pull off dirty comedy just as well or even better than men, we already have Bridesmaids. For a franchise that basically wrote the book on sex comedy for the 2000s, seeing it play catch-up this desperately would be disappointing if not for two key things. One, they already bottomed out long before this with the other American Pie Presents films, and two, the main cast here are actually pretty decent.
While their characters aren’t always ideal (Piper Curda’s Kayla has a sizeable amount of unlikable moments here), their actual performances and chemistry with each other at least grounds the film somewhat so we actually give even half a shit about what happens to them. Lizze Broadway in particular as Stephanie Stifler really makes a good impression here (introduced with a combination of BDSM and a lighter shade of Promising Young Woman), managing to outclass basically every other Presents film in terms of the requisite Stifler sibling with real charisma and ‘knows what she wants’ attitude that helps typify the ostensible reason why this film was made in the first place.
But even then, this being the latest example of former Disney actresses trying to reinvent themselves in a saucier direction combined with the extremely dated script make their obvious talent feel wasted. There are a lot of reheated gags and scenes from previous films, quite a few built around the contrivance of parents wanting to surprise their kids at just the wrong moment (a cliché that has become a cliché specifically because of the American Pie series), and as much as they try and reframe the original’s horniness into a want for meaningful relationships, it doesn’t make the recurring scenes feel any different whatsoever. There are a couple of nice moments, and even a rather sweet finale, but for the most part, it’s leftovers from two decades ago.
There’s also how the plot is structured, as loose as it is for one of these teenage sex romps, where the main four make their pact to find their ‘one’ and they all end up crushing on the new kid in school Grant (Darren Barnet), who is such an obvious Lego brick in how conveniently his interests and talents attract each one individually. When I originally decided to watch and review this movie, I wasn’t planning on pointing out that this is a female sex empowerment story directed, written, shot, scored and partially edited by men (The opening credits saying ‘Edited by Chuck Norris’ is literally the funniest thing in this whole movie), but then they drop that painfully regressive plot line and it feels way too obvious that this is what the production listing looks like.
The soundtrack sucks too, but honestly, that might just be par for the course with this franchise. I’m still quite fond of the first few American Pie films, but those song choices always rubbed me the wrong way and are part of the reason why I hate 2000s college radio rock as much as I do to this day. With this film, that manifests as a lot of cover songs (most of which are done by the same artist in Tatiana DeMaria), likely a budgetary move because cover songs are usually cheaper to license than the originals, and they’re all bland as fuck. Songs like Hot Stuff and Venus and Ring My Bell and even Don’t You Forget About Me are pretty tired options as is, but as rendered here, they’re the lesser version of something that’s already worn out long before now. Fitting for the latest addition to a franchise that hasn’t been anywhere close to essential in nearly two decades.
I can’t say I really hate this film all that much, but that’s only because this film’s mere existence set my expectations fairly low and there’s not even much to connect with anyway, positively or otherwise. The acting is mostly fine, the way it depicts feminine sexuality at least appears to be well-intentioned (there’s my damning with faint praise sorted for today), and I can see a modicum of reason for it to be a thing. But the window for this to be even remotely relevant or interesting has long since closed, and when there’s so many better alternatives out there, this whole thing feels like a pointless exercise, even by direct-to-home-video standards.
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