Plot
In typical American Pie style Jim proposes to Michelle in a rather unorthodox fashion (with his trousers around his ankles). Michelle accepts and so we have the first American Pie Wedding. Unfortunately Jim, Finch and Kevin fail to keep the wedding a secret from Stifler. While Jim and Michelle prepare for the wedding, Stifler prepares for the Bachelor party and Finch and Stifler go all out to try and woo Michelle’s sister Cadence. Meanwhile Jim has to learn to dance and also try and impress the future in laws.
Review I’m not normally a huge fan of the Gross-Out teen comedy genre, in fact I’ll say this quietly as I’ll probably be hunted down for it, but I don’t even find the daddy of them Animal House particularly funny. I have however really enjoyed the previous two American Pie films, OK the second pie outing was a little disjointed and weak in places but it was still a good fun feel good movie.
American Wedding is I’m happy to report essentially more of the same with a few minor differences. The first major difference to note is the reduced cast, gone are the likes of Oz (Chris Klein), Vicky (Tara Reid), Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) and Heather (Mena Suvari). Instead this film focuses on Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), with a supporting cast of Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and of course Stifler (Seann William Scott).
The surprising thing is that even with the reduced cast some characters still feel redundant. The character of Kevin hardly seems to have any lines in the film and just seems to be there to make up the numbers. The real shame with the cast though, is the gross lack of involvement for the leading lady Michelle. Considering this is supposed to be Jim and Michelle’s film she has less screen presence here than in any of the previous films.
The character that’s really developed much further in this film is Steve Stifler. His battle with Finch to win over new character and sister of Michelle, Cadence (January Jones) is probably the main plot element that keeps the story moving along. As for the rest of the cast, Eugene Levy is back and as funny as ever. Fred Willard and Deborah Rush play Michelle’s parents and they’re intentionally straight and serious characters and finally who could forget Fraulein Brandi (Amanda Swisten) and Officer Krystal (Nikki Schieler Ziering) I’ll say no more on that subject :)
As for the set piece gags, there’s at least as many of these as the previous films. Some of them work well, others are not so good. There is of course the obligatory stomach churning gag and if you haven’t seen the film then I’ll say no more about it. The Bachelor Party while funny enough does feel a little forced, as if they just tried really hard to out do the infamous lesbian scene for American Pie 2. The only other scene that I didn’t find particularly funny was a scene with Stifler, Jim, a cake and two dogs. The whole set up was so ridiculous I though I was watching a carry on film, I was expecting someone to say “Oooh Matron!” at any moment.
Just to finish off I’d like to mention the extra scenes that are included in the unrated version. The majority of these scenes are part of the Bachelor Party, apparently there are other scenes throughout the film but I honestly couldn’t say I really noticed them. The Bachelor Party scenes however were a problem for me. While many of the additional scenes here are funny enough in their own right, there’s no real flow to it. The whole thing just feels like a slightly messy, uncoordinated montage that would be better suited as an extra feature on the DVD. Given the choice I would opt for the Theatrical version every time as this addition just feels too messy for my liking.
Video/Audio Considering this is a new release the video quality is actually a little disappointing. The film comes with a 2.35:1 Anamorphic print, which suffers from rather bland colours and some quite noticeable artifact problems in some of the darker scenes. At times the image also becomes quite soft and grainy, it’s not a bad print but compared to other new release it’s a little disappointing.
The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack is also a little disappointing, I realise that these sort of comedies don’t really lend themselves to a lot of surround effects. However even with this taken into account, the whole film just sounded a little flat and uninspiring to me. Again it’s not terrible, but it’s also nothing special.
Extras The disk actually comes with two
Commentary Tracks, the first of these coming from Director Jesse Dylan and Actor Sean William Scott, while the second is a cast commentary from Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Thomas Ian Nicholas. The first of these commentaries is definitely the most interesting and amusing. Both Dylan and Scott work well of each and provide plenty of interesting information and amusing anecdotes. Scott is clearly nothing like the character Stifler as he proves to be both intelligent and interesting to listen to.
The second commentary while having lots of potential, suffers from a lack of preparation. The cast have clearly not seen the finished film all the way through before this and there are lots of long quiet moments while they’re watching the film rather than commenting on it.
There’s a good selection of around 25 minutes of worth of
Deleted Scenes, each including a short introduction from writer Adam Herz or Sean William Scott. This is a good extra as the introduction gives a good insight into why the scenes were removed from the film. The 6 minute collection of
Outtakes are of varying quality, with only a few being overly funny.
Stifler Speak is a nice little extra feature, it contains interviews with Sean William Scott and some of the crew on how they created the character Stifler, how much dialogue is pre-written or ad-libbed etc.
Enter The Dominatrix: Inside The Bachelor Party, is pretty much self explanatory from the title. It does give a good insight into the slightly bizarre world of film making as cast members discuss the best ways of making dog teeth marks in a rubber dildo and people calmly talk to the camera while practically naked women walk around in the background.
Grooming The Groom is a very amusing little feature. It goes into details on how they filmed the scene of Jim shaving his pubic hair. Everything from creating false pubic hair to camera tests of how to blow it through the air. And finally we come to the dumb filler extras, first up is a
Cheesy Wedding Video which as the title suggests is a montage of clips from the wedding scenes put together as a low budget video. Then we have
Nikki’s Hollywood Journal this is a fly on the wall feature following Nikki Schieler Ziering around on the day of the film premier, totally pointless.
Overall American Wedding is a suitable end to the American Pie franchise, and worthy of a place in anyone’s comedy collection. The Disk itself has a good but not outstanding selection of extra features, with only a minor amount of filler. Video and audio quality are disappointing although nothing to be overly concerned about. Overall this is a good solid DVD release of an enjoyable enough comedy and recommended to any fan of the American Pie films.