Pale Ale

Rating: Null/10 (9 August 1999)

Well, in this world of mimicry, its no surprise that movie producers have much less room for innovation than for duplication. American Pie is yet another example of this. After the suprise hit "Theres something about Mary" was released last year, Universal just had to get in on the action. So they made a film with a similar theme, reduced the target audience age by about 10 years, and "American Pie" was born. Only now we have a film which is so gross, so tasteless, and so immature that it makes Mary look like a G rated family adventure. If you think the hair gel scene in Something about Mary was pushing it, check out the expectoration-beer scene in this movie.

I've always been a huge fan of the 1980s comedy skin flicks like Porky's, and don't really mind gross humor (I loved Trainspotting) as long as its got something good to balance it. But all this film has is annoying teens drinking, reading porn, and finding new ways to beat a proverbial dead horse (don't even consider that a pun) with a nonsensical apple pie scene that has already been made notorious from TV advertisements. Sure there are a few attempts to make this film seem original and innocuous, like a choir subplot and Eugene Levy's fatherly concern (He happens to be a likeable guy), but nearly every scene in this movie revolves around boringly crude bodily function humor.
Im sure this movie will do well when released on video, its an ideal teen slumber party feature, but its a far cry from its much handier 80s progenitors. If Cinemax ever decided to have an adult TGIF, this would surely be their focal point. After all, its merely an R rated version of "Boy Meets World."