“American Pie: The Wedding” deserves all the praise it gets. It’s a litmus test for misanthropes, revealing their true colors like a urine analysis reveals health conditions. It’s remarkable not only for its unabashedly pelvic humor but also for relegating brains to the realm of excrement. If someone dislikes people so much that they’re ready to pick up a weapon, the third installment of “American Pie” is a perfect, bloodless substitute.
A Hilarious Premise
The ever-smiling James (Jason Biggs) finally decides to marry his somewhat dim-witted Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). He takes her to a restaurant but forgets the engagement ring, stalling for time until his kind father (Eugene Levy) arrives with it. He proposes, starting by saying he wants to fundamentally change their relationship, which has lost its spark. Michelle, who’s been with James for four years, understands him perfectly. In the crowded restaurant, she crawls under the table, only her soles visible, and performs oral sex on James. What happens next? You guessed it: his father appears, pulling his son out at the crucial moment and, seeing him without pants, exclaims, ignoring the waiters and other patrons, “What’s wrong with your wiener, son? What’s wrong with your wiener?”
Unforgettable Moments
When the bride’s parents, owners of two amusing dogs, arrive after the engagement, an uninvited guest, the infamous Stifler (Seann William Scott), shows up, and a cream cake appears on the table. How do you defuse the situation? Of course, Stifler smears cake on himself and James, specifically in their nether regions, so the dogs can run in and start licking it off. One dog licks so enthusiastically that the other, being licked while standing, has to be pulled away by the legs, repeating specific movements just long enough for the door to open and all the guests, worried about where the kids have disappeared to, to appear.
The pelvic humor itself isn’t the most remarkable thing about this work by recent music video director Jesse Dylan. What’s truly impressive is how he never deviates from tried-and-true formulas. If the buddies end up in a gay bar, they don’t realize it until the very end. If prostitutes, “S&M,” and “French maids” are called for a bachelor party, the bride’s parents will inevitably show up, and the episode won’t end until every last drop of humor has been squeezed out of it. The infamous Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) covers himself in chocolate, resembling something else entirely, and hides in a kitchen cabinet, from which the bride’s father asks James to retrieve a turkey platter. The infamous Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), tied to a wheelchair by “S&M,” hides in a closet, from which the bride’s mother asks James to retrieve a broom. After the brilliant idea that there are burglars in the house is announced, an “S&M” cop appears, and as a result, the bride’s father ends up sniffing her removed underwear. The client who organized the bachelor party at the gay bar ends up in leather pants with a large cutout on the buttocks.
The Climax
If Stifler enters a dark linen closet during the wedding to hook up with a bridesmaid, she, of course, won’t be there. Stifler blindly ends up with the groom’s elderly grandmother, confined to a wheelchair and hidden in the linen closet for her sharp tongue, and she’s so pleased that she waves to him throughout the wedding ceremony, which he ignores, leading everyone to think the grandmother is recovering. Afterward, the groom, of course, in a black tuxedo, and the bride in a white crinoline dress, dance a beautifully lit waltz on an inlaid floor amidst lilies and roses. This isn’t just humor; it’s the meaning of life – every misanthrope deserves a meager tear of joy.
A separate point of the achieved vegetative perfection (James, on Stifler’s advice, shaved his pubic hair, and the wind carried it directly onto the wedding cake) is the visible inadequacy of almost everyone present. Even Seann William Scott (“Bulletproof Monk”) contorts his face so much that one can’t help but diagnose a pinched facial nerve. The other comedians also had to try hard to completely destroy the organic nature of the humor and match the degree of idiocy of their faces with the degree of idiocy of the text. “I call it smooching,” – “And what do you do when you’re not smooching?” – “Well, I wait until I can smooch,” they say with terrible grimaces, not allowing even the slightest discrepancy between human appearance and physiological functions. It doesn’t matter that Alyson Hannigan has been advertising McDonald’s since she was four, or that Jason Biggs just starred in a Woody Allen film. Here, they are the perfect examples of a smiling simpleton and a complete airhead!
Overall, the creators of “The Wedding” are probably right in their misanthropy: “Viewers laugh because of the awkward situations the characters get into. It’s because everyone has experienced similar situations. You can laugh out loud at our films.”