Men need sex to feel loved. Women need love to have sex. Where do you even begin?

Rating: 8/10 (29 October 2006)

American Pie was a gruesome experience for me because the first time I watched it was with my best friend's older brother and father. Yeah, just us three. I was thirteen years old and a little part of me died as the brazen jokes kept piling up and culminating in grossness, upon which the father shifted awkwardly in his seat. With hindsight it was absolutely worth every minute of agony, because the film is such a powerful staple on the raunchy teen comedy wall of fame today and surely one of the most laugh-out-loud worthy films in my DVD collection (which isn't saying much since I have a total of like 20 films but still).
Its premise and execution both bluntly rehash Porky's but it also updates and modernizes its humour, settings and characters. Both Porky's and American Pie will be extremely dated (the former already is) but undoubtedly that will only contribute to the glossy contemporary feel of the films. They both zoom in on a group of brazen  but ordinary  teenage boys in the last year of high school and unflinchingly follow them as they enter a quest to lose their virginity before graduation, whatever means necessary. American Pie boasts of a quintet of absolutely hilarious guys who take on the mission but botch their way through dates and sexual encounters with fumbling ineptness. What is especially refreshing about the aforementioned is that these guys have no 'assigned quirks' to get the message across but only different personalities. In other words, they are playing it totally straight and the comedy therefore stems from the situations.
Sure 'American Pie' is not devoid of faults. Not by a long shot. It actively perpetuates stereotypes of the jock, the goody-goody two-shoes choir girl, the pimple-faced nerd, the Latin freak and the band camp geek. Far worse is that it presupposes that all girls are emotional predators of sorts, only after a heartfelt 'I love you' and conversely that are guys are horny beasts. Certainly there is a great deal of truth to both stereotypes but come on now  it's plain lazy comedy to ride on these clichés. Luckily American Pie has far more weapons to offer from its arsenal of comedy. How can you not enjoy a film that gave birth to the comic genius that is Eugene Levy, the fantastic Jennifer Coolidge as a Mrs. Robinsonesque older woman and coined the expression 'MILF'? The answer is, you can't. It's crude, dirty, gross, too far  and we love it.
8 out of 10