‘Pie’ in the face

Michael Wilmington

Thursday, Aug. 9, 2001 | 10:30 a.m.

"American Pie 2"

2 1/2 stars

Starring: Jason Biggs, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Natasha Lyonne, Eugene Levy, Seann William Scott and Tara Reid.

Director: James B. Rogers (II)

Screenplay: Adam Herz and David H. Steinberg

Rating: Rated R for strong sexual content, crude humor, language and drinking.

Running Time: 100 minutes

Watching "American Pie 2" raises the question: How much humor can you mine out of the spectacle of a half-dozen mostly inept teen-age guys trying to be party-hearty studs among more than a half-dozen willing teen-age girls?

Not enough for two whole movies, dudes.

Simultaneously raunchy and cute, the first "American Pie" -- which was about that same sextet and their last-year-of-high-school sexual misadventures -- was one of the surprise hits of 1999. It made me laugh too, and I enjoyed most of the actors: a sparkling teen/twentysomething ensemble that included Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, Chris Klein, Natasha Lyonne, Shannon Elizabeth and some other bright, young up-and-comers. Despite being trapped in the usual lewd teen-comedy high jinks, the "Pie" gang often showed surprising feeling, personality and warmth. When they did all that dumb stuff on screen, you tended to forgive them. Sex, friendship, rock 'n' roll, dirty jokes, an attractive cast and nostalgia for high school: That's what the first movie had to sell. And it did a pretty good job.

But "American Pie 2," which brings back the same cast for more of the same, is just another by-the-numbers, money-hungry sequel with a lot of recycled shaggy-sex jokes and gross-out gags. Though many of the same filmmakers also are involved, including writer Adam Herz and most of the original producers (with Paul Weitz replaced as director by J.B. Rogers), the sequel has nothing new to offer, other than showing the bunch grown one year older but no wiser. Instead of sex-crazed high schoolers, they're now sex-crazed college kids.

The central character of both films is nervous Jim (Biggs), whom we now see moving into a spiffy summer beach house with his four chums: affable jock Oz (Klein); the rich, piggish and perpetually grinning Stifler, a.k.a. "Stiffmeister" (Seann William Scott); shy Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas); and tantric-minded Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) -- who, in the last movie, fell for Stifler's mom (Jennifer Coolidge).

Also back from the first movie is self-deluded wannabe babe magnet Sherman, or "The Shermanator" (Chris Owen). The girls they're after, as before, are Oz's main squeeze Heather (Suvari, of "American Beauty"), bombshell Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), frank flutist Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), cynical Jessica (Lyonne) and buttery-haired Vicky (Tara Reid). Newly arrived are two upstairs neighbors, Danielle and Amber (Debbie Faye and Lisa Arturo), whom the buddies mistake for lesbians -- to their later embarrassment.

Jim, the star of "American Pie's" big scene (the Internet debacle), is still a nervous, Portnoy-ish lad whose most intense encounters are usually with his right hand and who is constantly being trapped in compromising positions or embarrassing blunders. Biggs is good at this type of thing. He has a stricken, deer-in-the-headlights look that makes all his raunchy slapstick scenes work. In "A.P. 2" he gets into even worse fixes. He's coerced into fondling and kissing his male buddies by those two playful girls upstairs. And, after mistaking Krazy Glue for a sexual lubricant, he winds up in the hospital with one hand glued to a porno cassette and the other glued to a body part.

In both films, Jim's pricelessly nerdy dad (Eugene Levy) catches Jim in bed with a girl, and in both films, Jimbo gets surprising attention from the gorgeous Nadia and advice from "band camp" devotee Michelle -- whom we suspect may be his true soul mate.

Meanwhile, the rest of Jim's pals are chasing girls, acting like idiots and occasionally even getting rained on, speaking euphemistically. It's an R-rated movie -- and deserves to be -- but it seems obviously pitched at a teen and early 20s audience. And though the story comes close to being soft-core porn -- the few scenes that don't revolve around sex usually deal with toilet habits -- everything goes squishy-soft and sentimental at the end, trying to give us a last-minute affirmation of young romantic love.

Oh, sure. Though the plot of "American Pie 2," like its predecessor, almost exactly parallels the usual soft-core-porn plot, things rarely lead to actual sex, but instead to intense embarrassment and public humiliation. That's the commercial strategy for the movie, and it's probably a smart one. The filmmakers cook up a classic teen-age boy's sex fantasy, then show us slapstick and gross-outs instead of lovemaking, and close with those love affirmations in order to hold the sympathies of the female audience. In a way, this is a Hollywood ploy that dates all the way back to Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedies and before.

I hate to analyze a movie according to marketing strategies, but that's what "American Pie 2" deserves. It's a calculated investment intended to tweak, amuse and tease susceptible young adults -- and teens who can get their parents to escort them into an "R" movie. Though the cast is still good -- I especially liked Levy, Biggs, Scott and Hannigan -- this show is not well-written or well-done, just well-packaged. It's another "American Pie" thrown right in the audience's face.