You know how when you’re in high school and everything seems so great. It seems like you’ll cherish those memories and those friends forever. As time goes on, you miss the people, the parties, the craziness and think, “man, if I could only go back and relive that time”. Then your high school reunion comes along and you think, “hmm. those people aren’t as much fun as I remember”? In fact some of them are kind of on the douche bag side, making you wish you still only had the high school memory because it’s just not fun anymore? That pretty much sums up “American Reunion”.
Set a few years after “American Wedding”, this picks up with Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Allyson Hannigan), still married but with kids. Stifler (Sean William Scott) has a corporate job where he is a stooge to a jerk of a boss. Oz (Chris Klein) works for an ESPN type network and dates a hot chick…but she isn’t Heather (Mena Suvari). Finch (Eddie Kaye-Thomas) is a caricature of what he always wanted to be in high school and for some reason they’re all still friends with Kevin (Thomas Ian Nichols), who was always the absolute worst character out of all of them.
Their 10 year reunion is coming up and the boys want to get together to relive the old days and remember their youth while taking a break from the reality of their bleak and seemingly boring lives. They quickly get reminded that they are now the “old guys” and those days are long gone. Jim gets temptation thrown his way when his former neighbor, now a grown up hottie, wants to hook up with him. Oz has a hard time dealing with the fact Heather has moved on without him and Stifler just wants everyone to like him. Oh and Kevin blah-blah-blah…no one cares about his story.
The movie tries desperately to re-capture the magic in a bottle the first and second movie had. It was clear by the third one it was running out of fumes and taking time off for most of them to do nothing didn’t do much to recharge those batteries. The movie lacks any entertainment value, especially when you realize that MOST grown ups don’t act like these morons. Sure, they are all dealing with things that some go through but it’s really just sad how much these people all cling to the non-existent high school glory they had event then.
“American Reunion” is flat, unmotivated movie that just may well point out that the original wasn’t really that good to begin with. It’s kind of like high school. Once you grow up and realize the people you used to hang out with are idiots now, it makes you realize things weren’t as great as you once thought they were.
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The American Reunion trailer:
photo and trailer are property of Universal Pictures