Although "American Wedding" offers little other than entertainment, I recommend this sweet-natured, laugh-out-loud comedy. However, it's not for people who don't like sophomoric, raunchy, vulgar humor. The film is the third in a series, following "American Pie" (1999) and "American Pie 2" (2001), and Jason Biggs (as Jim Levenstein), Seann William Scott (as Stifler), Alyson Hannigan (as Michelle Flaherty), Eugene Levy (as Jim’s dad), Eddie Kaye Thomas (as Finch), Thomas Ian Nicholas (as Kevin), and Jennifer Coolidge (as Stifler’s mom) are back. By the way, the DVD is available in both "R" rated and unrated versions. It is the "R" rated version that is reviewed here.
In “American Wedding,” Jim and Michelle have just graduated college and are getting married, and a lot goes wrong along the way. The movie drew me in even before the opening credits rolled. Jim takes Michelle to a crowded restaurant to propose to her, and he ends up hopping around with his rear end bared and his trousers at his ankles.
Perhaps the grossest sequence in the movie—but to my mind one of the funniest—is where Jim meets his future in-laws for the first time. Stifler gets cake frosting on the crotch of the pants he’s wearing, and a big dog starts licking off the frosting. Jim tries to pull the dog away from Stifler, while a small dog attacks Jim’s leg. When Jim’s future in-laws come upon this scene it looks like he and Stifler are having a four-way with the two canines!
I thought the funniest sequence in “American Wedding” was the bachelor party where two young women—one dressed as a dominatrix policewoman and the other as a maid—get topless and entertain the guys. A brilliant series of farcical mishaps unfolds when Jim's future in-laws walk in on the party, and what made this so hilarious was that I couldn’t see any of the gags coming. The funniest moment in the whole sequence comes when the future in-laws open a closet to find one of Jim’s friends blindfolded and taped to a chair.
Another comical thread in the film involves Jim preparing for his wedding night by shaving the hair around his private parts. When he disposes of the hair, some of it sticks to the frosting on the wedding cake. After this fiasco Jim’s dad remarks, “Boy, pubic hair was just not an issue when I was dating.”
Stifler is a much more important character in “American Wedding” than he was in the earlier “American Pie” movies. This time around, he gets caught in a lie, and his best way out is to pretend some dog feces is a chocolate truffle and pop it in his mouth. But Stifler does try to clean up his act because he is drawn to Michelle’s sister Cadence (January Jones). Near the end of the film he presents her with a flower, causing Michelle to comment, “Steve Stifler just gave a rose to a girl and meant it. This is huge! It’s like watching monkeys use tools for the first time!”
I found the first two-thirds of the film to be uproariously funny, but then it changes tone, and I didn't laugh much in the final half hour. The movie becomes more sweet-natured and romantic towards the end, but I still found this to be a satisfying way to wind the story down. The DVD box claims "American Wedding" will end the series, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changed.
The DVD comes with a number of bonus materials, and I have listed these below.
Selected Special Features:
- Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1)
- English 5.1 Dolby Digital
- Spanish Dolby Surround
- French Dolby Surround
- English Captions for the Hearing Impaired
- Spanish Subtitles
- French Subtitles
- Audio Commentary by Director Jesse Dylan and Seann William Scott
- Audio Commentary by Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Thomas Ian Nicholas
- Deleted Scenes
- Outtakes
- Stifler Speak
- Cheesy Wedding Video
- Kevin Cam: A Day in the Life of an Actor
- Nikki’s Hollywood Journal
- Cast & Filmmakers
- DVD-ROM Features
