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This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

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Plot Overview

cherry piegraduates

College News

One school year after a handful of high school grads had tried to prove their mettle by getting laid or securing a girl­friend on prom night, they return from their freshman year of college ready to “take the next step.” To that end they rent a beach house on Lake Michigan for some serious partying.

Bumptious Steve Stiffler (Seann William Scott) likes it kinky, and who knows what the waves will serve up? Jim Leven­stein (Jason Biggs) is pining for Swedish exchange student Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth,) the one who got away, but she might come see him. Fearing to disappoint her through lack of experience he accepts pointers from “flute fetish band bitch” Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) who's versatile on both organs. Chris “Oz” Ostreicher (Chris Klein) tries phone sex to maintain a long distance relation­ship with Heather (Mena Suvari) who's studying in Spain for the summer. Kevin Myers (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is forced into a friends-only relation with his former fling Vicky (Tara Reid) who “got hot” in the interim. Paul Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is obsessed with Stiffler's over­sexed mother (Jennifer Coolidge) who might swing by later. And hanger-on Sherman (Chris Owen) is out of his geeky league.

Ideology

loversThe “next step” they are taking concerns physical intimacy with the opposite sex. For a point of reference we'll cite Paul H. Landis writing In Defense of Dating:

It is quite logical to believe that some kind of dating is necessary to the development of the judgment and pair interaction that is at the root of real objectivity in mate selec­tion. … ¶Those who have dated more than one person have a chance to compare and to learn some of the usual behavior patterns of members of the opposite sex. They learn to distinguish between those whose personalities seem to promise a durable compatibility and those whose personalities obviously do not. Dating is an explor­atory experience through which young people learn. It no doubt contributes to the ability to feel at ease with the opposite sex and the love play sanctioned in dating may well be an important factor in the development of a normal hetero­sexual orientation in the psycho­sexual area. … ¶In most circles today, there­fore, it is considered desirable that young people “circulate” rather than “go steady” from the beginning, … that some variety of dating experi­ence is favorable to ultimate mate choice. The girl who is considered desirable as a date by a number of fellows is presumed to be the one most likely to be sought after in marriage. (223–4)

penguin on skisFor a framework of parameters in order to define basic “steps,” we'll use, (Col. 2:21) “Touch not; taste not; handle not.” That is, physicality in the platonic realm is the province of “touch.” For dating/boy­friend–girl­friend/relation­ships it's kissing: “taste.” And for marriage it's “handling” of the sex organs by which things take off down a slippery slope.

handshakeKevin and Vicky found it awkward to retreat a step back to “just friends,” so Vicky had to define what that meant. Touch dancing was fine, though at this party there was precious little touching, just bouncing and flailing. A hearty hug worked fine between friends. Their hand­shake was safe. The attempted “friend-kiss” was iffy when Kevin was about to get carried away. Stiffler for his part helped us sort out the latter when one of his tentative kinky kisses was described as, “the way to kiss your mother.” Good enough.

Methodology
is importantturkeyIf it was awkward Kevin and Vicky going back to being “just friends,” it was awkward also for Jim an altogether klutz to try to take the next step with a girl­friend. Luckily, he had Michelle as a ready tutor. After observing Kevin's direct approach, her first advice was, “No, you ding­bat. You don't just go groping away. You gotta pre-heat the oven before you stick in the turkey.” Right.

care bearShe took him through a process, step by step. First he had her kiss her neck, then kiss her collar­bone. Their first session ended with a ritual good-bye kiss (“Less tongue.”) Okay. Then they went on to him being massaged into a proper pucker. Eventually, she had a make­shift dummy wearing a bra, on which she taught him how to reach behind and unbutton the clasp while he was kissing her (it.) This was all well and good.

music practicehorn playingAs for the third stage which would be next from there, reference was made to their prom night. Michelle remarked, “Jeez how could I forget? You sucked. You didn't know what the hell you were doing. But wasn't it fun even though you were so terrible?” God evidently made sexual inter­course so pleasurable that one need not have the best technique to enjoy it. Since this is not an X–rated movie, we weren't shown that act but were treated to an impromptu duet between the flutist and the trombone player. Kevin's technique was close to that described by author Jamie O'Neill:

“Tell me, Doyle, where did you learn to play the flute at all?”

“Nowhere, sir. Brother, I mean. I mean I learnt it meself.”

Brother Polycarp inclined his head with a suspense playfully mounted. “In this band, Mr. Doyle, we are accustomed to a respectable music. A music in the tradition of Kuhlau and Briccialdi and the gentlemen of the traverse mode. We do not slip and slide the like of Phil the fluter at his ball. Sit you in front in future, boy, and play by the tongue not your maulers.” (58)

While going to step two, kissing, was awkward, in this movie proceeding further is down­right embarrassing. When both sets of parents stumbled into Jim's dorm room while he was having “friendly good-bye sex” with a co-ed, the girl's dad told her, “Natalie, get dressed!” Later, a doctor will advise Jim, “Keep your shorts on at the party.” Thus AmPi2 defines a separate territory beyond their “next step.”

Marriage
Counseling

house painterThe way it mitigates embarrassment is that Jim's Dad (Eugene Levy) is wearing a wedding ring, as in, “Married and all?” ¶“Priests and witnesses.” (O'Neill, 72) A wedding is like a contract with society so people will know not to stumble on a couple at home at night. Here the boys had to secure summer jobs as house painters to afford the beach house. To prepare a home for eventual families, they'll need to follow the advice of the priest, complete their educations, and get married, these steps coming before the other next-est.

Which translation is God's word?There is a side plot concerning Finch's infatuation with Stiffler's mother. A man achieves his sexual peak in his late teens, a woman in her fifties. Finch is nine­teen. He had glorious sex with Stiffler's mom once. To reproduce it he is practicing tantric yoga in which he is channeling his energies to produce a day-long orgasm. The (KJV) Bible enjoins us to temperance, which is moderation in thoughts, feelings, and actions. To have such an excessive feeling would interfere with one's Christian walk. Recent English translations have substituted the word self-control for temperance. But it is the self-acquired yoga control that produces the excess. As such the substitution is a malapropism at best or buddhism at worst.

Production Values

” (2001) was directed by J.B. Rodgers. It was written by Adam Herz, who also wrote the original, and by David H. Steinberg. It stars Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan, Eugene Levy, and Jennifer Collidge. The actors & actresses all did fine in their quirky roles.

MPA rated it R for strong sexual content, crude humor, language and drinking. It didn't tell us which college(s) the students went to, being, I suppose, a generic party school. Runtime is 1¾ hours.

Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation

AmPi2 would flock together with what O'Neill lists as the “immoral literature, the smutty post­cards, the lewd plays, and suggestive songs … puffs from the foul breath of a paganized society” (107-8). But it would also find company with “the boys as they made their fare­wells. Palled up great so they have. Those chats you have in the green of youth. All the time in the world and all the plans to make for it. But little the future is in it. No friend­ship with­out you're equals. They learnt me that in the army. And Jim's a college boy now. Jim. My son James.” (102) Thank­fully, I survived my college days, with some nostalgia and some regrets. I thought this movie was funny, though it might be a bad influence on the unwary.

Movie Ratings

Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Wake up and smell the 1990s technology. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.

Works Cited

Scripture quotation from the Authorized King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.

Landis, Paul H. Making the Most of Marriage. New York: Meredith Publishing, 1965. Print.

O'Neill, Jamie. At Swim, Two Boys. Copyright © 2001 by Jamie O'Neill. New York: Scribner, 2002. Print.