'American Reunion' offers nostalgia trip for fans

The human tendency to build up the negative as something bigger than it actually ends up being is a tendency that I have been learning to suppress over the last few years. In preparation of viewing "American Reunion," I watched the first "Amercian Pie" which I was surprised to find a pretty decent and down-to-earth comedy about that mystical time in a human being's life when it was believed that sex wasthe key to ascending into Nirvana.

Although I enjoyed the movie, despite the era of obnoxious sex comedies that it ushered in, I never for a second saw a sequel to a film about awkward teenagers clinging to their antics as adults believable, feasible, or even entertaining. Yet here we are, 13 years and three sequels later, and as far as I can see, such a belief has yet to be disproven, even when the final product isn't quite that bad.

"American Reunion" reunites a grand majority of the cast of the first "American Pie" film for their 13 year class reunion. Jason Biggs, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Chris Klein, and a lot of other actors that haven't done anything noteworthy in years all reprise their roles as they face each other now that their "glory days" are behind them and they face the challenges of adulthood.

Surprisingly enough, the movie actually does a decent job at selling these once awkward kids as adults dealing with adjusting to the real world. The marital rut between Jason Biggs' character Jim and Michelle-played by Allison Hannigan, one of about four people in the film that actually have an existing career- and things like Kevin -played by Thomas Ian Nicholas- having to confront his old feelings for his high school sweetheart effectively provide the much needed moments of maturity that the film needed.

The film is not without consistently chuckle worthy moments, either. For any fans waiting for Steve Stiffler -Sean William Scott- to get his due in the world after high school, you're in for a treat, and all of the stuff surrounding Eugene Levy is just flat out gold.

Unfortunately, like most comedies these days, what starts as a sound setup quickly turns into a buffoonish execution of lame, gross-out gags and jokes centered around an annoyingly unrealistic level of miscommunication.This weak humor fortunately doesn't permeate the entire film, but it does emit a sense of safety that the film generally plays to.

Everything about "American Reunion" feels like a giant nostalgia trip for hardcore fans. There's a lot of fan service and inside jokes, but in paying the original film homage, they forgot to actually make a funny comedy. "American Reunion" is essentially comfort food for "American Pie" fans and on that level, it has succeeded rather decently. I'll probably never watch it again but expecting something far worse than I actually got - once I paid $5 for my ticket and settled into my seat - I was at least granted a decent experience from start to finish.