‘American Pie 2’ Director: J.B. Rogers Stars: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Seann William Scott MPAA Rating: R, for strong sexual content, crude humor, language and drinking Cinema Listings Get Directions Internet Movie Database Official Site CDnow Soundtrack

It’s common knowledge that most sequels aren’t as good as the films that spawned them. But given the depths movies have reached in recent years, it’s not surprising that we get a lot of sequels anymore to movies that weren’t even close to being good in the first place. When you walk into a sequel to a bad original that rated a generous two stars at best, there’s seldom much hope that the sequel will somehow be an improvement. In fact, the opposite usually is true, since most sequels these days don’t exist as a continuation of a story or contain characters who deserve revisiting. Excluding continuing-adventures-of franchises such as Dirty Harry, the Pink Panther and Indiana Jones, sequels that equal or nearly equal their predecessor (‘The Godfather Part II,’ ‘The French Connection II’ and ‘Hannibal’) seem like aberrations. Most sequels are like ‘American Pie 2’ – the only reason it exists is because the first one made lots of money. The original ‘American Pie’ (1999) became one of the bigger hits in the annoying cycle of teen grossout comedies polluting theaters in the past five years. It was hardly the worst of its kind (that dishonor is shared by this year’s ‘Freddy Got Fingered’ and ‘Tomcats’), but remains virtually indistinguishable from the many others like it except for Eugene Levy’s funny supporting performance as a square, uptight father desperately trying to be a hip role model for his sex-obsessed teen-age son. ‘American Pie 2’ is a tiresome rehash of the original, with all the same horny teen-agers returning for more shenanigans. The sequel opens with buddies Jim (Jason Biggs), Oz (Chris Klein), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Stifler (Seann William Scott) returning from their first year of college and embarking on a summer-long vacation at a beach house. Biggs, who looks like a young Elliott Gould, gets most of the screen time as Jim, who’s always bumbling, especially during sexual situations. Here he requests lessons in proper lovemaking from ‘band nerd’ Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) to help him prepare for the return of sexy Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth). Jim idealizes Nadia as the perfect sex partner, but he’s much more relaxed in Michelle’s presence, so you probably already know where this subplot is headed. Most of the other cast members are given token storylines and barely register, except Stifler, the obnoxious satyr of the bunch. And with the exception of Hannigan, all of the other women from ‘American Pie’ (played by Natasha Lyonne, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari and Elizabeth) are given little to do, and look like they probably completed their parts within a week. ‘American Pie 2’ is instead content being a crude sex fantasy for young males. Especially tasteless and gratuitous is a scene in which three of the guys encounter two women they perceive to be lesbians. What’s borderline offensive about ‘American Pie’ and its sequel is that they’re nothing more than shallow grossout comedies reveling in jokes about aberrant sexuality, yet they simultaneously expect you to care about this collection of immature, libidinous characters. Admittedly, I laughed a few times during ‘American Pie 2′ (thanks mostly to Levy’s reappearance as Jim’s Dad), but while watching it, I thought of Mike Nichols’ ‘Carnal Knowledge’ (1971) and Alan Alda’s ‘The Four Seasons’ (1981), two far superior films from a time when a good percentage of what Hollywood produced still was aimed at adults. Controversial in its day, ‘Carnal Knowledge’ was a frank and intelligent examination of male sexual attitudes, while ‘The Four Seasons’ was a funny and insightful comedy-drama about three adult couples who regularly vacation together. Those are the type of smart films today’s young filmmakers should be emulating. Conversely, the makers of ‘American Pie 2’ seem to have learned most of their lessons from the ‘Porky’s’ trilogy. Chuck O’Leary is a Squirrel Hill-based free-lance writer. He can be reached at chazbow@hotmail.com .

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