The fifth movie in the American Pie franchise sets several new bars.
First and foremost, it's probably the worst in the bunch, though American Wedding really wasn't very good either. At best, I'd have to say that they tied for last in this department.
Second, Mr. Levenstein (Eugene Levy) makes another cameo here, like he did in American Pie Presents Band Camp, but the ties to the original are getting weaker all along.
In fact, without that, Mr. Levenstein's story about Jim and Michelle, a brief mention of "Great Falls" and the fact that the main character here (as well as in Band Camp) were named "Stifler", there would be no tie at all to the original story. Not that that's bad. Just a thought.
Just like in American Wedding and Band Camp, the language is ratcheted up a notch, but unlike in those two, it keeps going pretty much throughout here. To match it, there are also some reasonably gross scenes as well. I hope you're ready.
The story here isn't a lot different, the main difference between this movie (and the last one) is that the focus is off of Jim and onto a Stifler. In fact, it's a completely new Stifler. This time, however, it's Erik Stifler (John White), the latest of the family who can't seem to live up to his name.
Frankly, it seems to me like no one can. So I'm wondering what the problem is.
Anyway, Erik is a cousin of both Dwight, who is away at school, and legendary Steve (who hasn't been seen for some time, but is spoken of briefly).
Here, we find that not only is he not living up to the family name, he isn't even living up to Matt Stifler, from Band Camp. To make matters worse, he has been dating the same girl for some two years, and he can't even seal the deal. And if that's not bad enough, he recently was caught taking care of things at home - much like Jim in the original movie - but he was caught by his mom, his dad, and his grandmother. Unlike Jim, however, his grandmother died from the shock. Like I said, it's a new world out there.
For Erik, it's just one shame after another, and when he confronts his girlfriend Tracy (Jessy Schram) about the problem, she tells him that she isn't ready. But she does offer a solution.
She knows that Erik is getting ready to go to college with his buddies for the running of the Naked Mile, and she offers him a guilt-free, do-anything pass for the weekend, to "get it out of his system". Unfortunately, her friends later tell he just how bad of an idea that was, but by then, he's already gone, so she'll just have to worry about what happens.
On campus, Erik meets up with cousin Dwight (Steve Talley), who is a hard-drinking, sex-crazed lunatic like every Stifler boy should be. However, his fraternity brethren are having an issue because they are just about to get kicked off campus and have to participate in an intramural football game, so Erik and friends get recruited to play. Against some midgets. This is actually one of the highlights of the movie. It doesn't add much, but it is fun.
After the game, all the guys go to a party and try to hook up with someone or another, and Erik is the closest to making something happen, but he can't pull the trigger.
The next day is the running of the race, and there, everyone meets up with their respective girl, they run the race, which is administered by a special surprise guest, and afterwards, Erik gets to meet up with the girl from the night before. That's when Tracy sees him on the news, kissing someone, and knows she made a mistake giving him the guilt-free pass, so she is finally convinced that she needs to do something herself.
As this is happening, Erik is actually telling the girl that he can't (similar to Jim and Nadia in American Pie 2), and then heading back to Great Falls, where he catches Tracy just in time, so she doesn't make a mistake of her own. What a wonderful moment. Too bad you knew it would happen about an hour before.
Rated R for pervasive strong sexual content and crude humor, nudity, language, drinking and some drug use - all involving teens.
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