Wednesday 4 April 2012

Capsule reviews of 3-D 'Titanic,' other new films

In this image released by Universal Pictures, Jason Biggs is shown in a scene from You probably haven't been lying awake in bed at night wondering whatever became of Stifler and Oz and the rest of the horny kids from the original "American Pie" movie. Yet here they are, after 13 years and a couple of sequels, and they're more bland than bawdy these days. That's part of the joke: that they (and we) aren't in high school anymore, that we all have to grow up and function as adults with responsibilities and whatnot. But that doesn't make for a very fun or funny movie; instead, "American Reunion" relies on cliches about nostalgia and melodrama about the rekindling of first loves. Jim and Michelle (Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan) are now married with a 2-year-old son and zero sex life. But they return to their Michigan hometown for a 10-year high school reunion that's being staged three years late because supposedly no one could get their act together. It's a plot contrivance, leave it at that. There they run into the old gang, including Chris Klein as Oz, who's now a slick sports anchor; Eddie Kaye Thomas as the sophisticated Finch; and Seann William Scott as Stifler, who's still ... Stifler. "Harold & Kumar" creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg take over as writers and directors, but the sense of unpredictability that infused that franchise never surfaces here. Plus, this kind of raunchy, hard-R comedy has been done â€" and done better â€" countless times since "American Pie" debuted and seemed fresh in 1999. R for crude and sexual content throughout, nudity, language, brief drug use and teen drinking. 105 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.


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