American Reunion: Diminishing returns

American Reunion (2012) • View trailer
Three stars. Rating: R, for relentless crude and sexual content, profanity, nudity, brief drug use and teen drinking 
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.6.12


High school reunions, in great part trading on nostalgia, promise much but inevitably disappoint.

Everybody wants things to be the same, sort of ... and they are, sort of, which is the problem. The bad memories are amplified; the good memories are impossible to recapture in precisely the same way. Life is fresh only the first time; although the thought of going home again is irresistible, it’s like visiting a paler shadow of what we enjoyed so much, back in the day.

Wanting to help his father (Eugene Levy, center) out of a depressed funk, Jim
(Jason Biggs, left) unwisely brings him to a pre-reunion bash thrown by Stifler
(Seann William Scott). Unwise, that is, because Stifler decides that Jim's Dad
can best appreciate the party after half a dozen stiff shots.

And so it is with late-entry movie sequels. American Reunion, 13 years removed from the mixed delights of 1999’s American Pie, carries the strong whiff of wistful yearning; it’s also infected with the less savory smells of the raunch demanded by its script template.

It’s nice to see the entire gang again, particular after several key characters were left behind in 2003’s American Wedding. And, to their credit, the writing/directing team of Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg — veterans of the Harold & Kumar series — occasionally interrupt the obligatory vulgarity for plot sidebars involving genuine feelings, in an effort to reproduce the blend of sweet and sour that made scripter Adam Herz’s 1999 original fitfully charming (usually despite itself).

Unfortunately, the brand has been sullied during the past decade, thanks to a jaw-dropping series of direct-to-video “sorta-sequels” such as American Pie Presents Band Camp, American Pie Presents the Naked Mile and American Pie Presents Beta House (and I probably missed one or two others). Long on explicit tastelessness and short on anything else, these stiffs may have set up expectations — in the wrong direction — that this newest, true series sequel can’t fulfill.

Best buds Jim (Jason Biggs), Oz (Chris Klein), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), each mildly — or greatly — dissatisfied with the direction life has taken, enthusiastically anticipate their upcoming 13th reunion at East Great Falls High School. It’ll be a chance to visit the ol’ town and enjoy some quality bonding time.

Jim and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), thanks to the demands of a cute 2-year-old son, suffer the malaise of all first-time parents: Shared intimacy has become a thing of the past, replaced instead by individual efforts at self-satisfaction (depicted in unnecessary detail, of course).

Kevin is married as well, in a vaguely defined, submissive way to Ellie (Charlene Amoia): a plot element that never goes anywhere. Oz, trying to breathe fresh life into an acting career tarnished by a guest appearance on Celebrity Dance-Off, is trapped in a Hollywood-style relationship with Mia (Katrina Bowden), an oversexed sybarite who probably cheats on him three times a week.

Role Models: Model misbehavior

Role Models (2008) • View trailer for Role Models
2.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for smutty sexual content, nudity and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.13.08
Buy DVD: Role Models • Buy Blu-Ray: Role Models [Blu-ray]


Try as they might, some actors just aren't meant to be stars.

Paul Rudd is one of them.

He might best be remembered for his semi-regular gigs on TV's Friends and Reno 911, or his supporting performances in high-profile comedies such as Night at the Museum and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Would you want these two clowns spending time with your kids? Rather than
endure a 30-day stint in the slammer, Danny (Paul Rudd, center left) and
Wheeler (Seann William Scott, center right) agree to participate in a mentoring
program; they wind up assigned to, respectively, a geeky teen named Augie
(Christopher Mintz-Plasse, left) and an aggressively foul-mouthed fifth-grader
named Ronnie (Bobb'E J. Thompson). Rudd's morose expression in this photo
pretty much sums up the film's entire mood.

Rudd is not, however, leading man material.

He very nearly sinks Role Models, but in fairness this half-hearted comedy doesn't represent impressive effort on anybody's part, from its largely listless cast to David Wain's apparently disinterested direction.

Even the usually irrepressible Seann William Scott, such a hoot in the American Pie series, can't do more than muster up a pale imitation of his randy character from those films.

The script is credited to Rudd, Wain, Ken Marino, Timothy Dowling and William Blake Herron ... which is at least two names too many, and a certain sign that the finished product has been re-tweaked beyond any hope of salvation.

And it'd be a total loss were it not for the presence of — are you ready for the irony? — its two supporting players.

Both Christopher Mintz-Plasse and young Bobb'E J. Thompson are a hoot 'n' a holler: far funnier and much more interesting than Rudd and Scott. Mintz-Plasse and Thompson also are much better actors, and the latter's only 10 years old.

Rudd and Scott star as Danny and Wheeler, two frontmen for Minotaur energy drinks. Wheeler, with minimal career goals, has a great time dressing up as the company's minotaur mascot during the countless "Don't do drugs" school assemblies that fill their days. Danny, on the other hand, views his 10 years with the company as a sign that his life has gone nowhere.

Danny's increased self-loathing finally poisons his seven-year relationship with girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks), who dumps him.

With this as a catalyst, Danny drags Wheeler into an "incident" with the Minotaur company truck; the result is a sentence of 150 hours of community service in a mentorship program called Sturdy Wings, clearly modeled after Big Brother.