American Pie 2

Released 2001
Stars Jason Biggs, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan, Mena Suvari, Tara Reid, Shannon Elizabeth, Eugene Levy, Natasha Lyonne
Directed by J.B. Rogers

I enjoyed the first American Pie for the good-natured teen romp that it was, but this sequel was abysmal. For some reason they felt it necessary to bring back every single character from the first movie no matter how minor, and this created one big rehash of the first movie but, unfortunately, without the charm. There were only a couple of interesting characters to begin with, so this would have been a good opportunity to create new ones. For example, Oz, Kevin and their girlfriends are dreadfully dull, but so are most of the minor characters like the guy who peed on Stifler's head. It's obvious this movie was written for 13 year-olds with its retarded trombone player routine, trumpet in the butt, etc., but its treatment of Stifler was the icing on the cake. He was fun in the first one, but obnoxious as hell in this sequel. Did he have one line that didn't have the f-word? It's funny when you use that word for effect, but it's only funny to 13 year-olds when you use it for the sake of using it. The best thing this franchise had going for it was the relationship between Jim and his dad, and I would have liked to see this movie make more use of it. They gave us a little, but overall they gave us one boring unfunny scene after another. It was completely dreadful.

Summary by Bill Alward, February 14, 2004