American Wedding

Release Date: August 1, 2003
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Jesse Dylan
Screenwriter: Adam Herz
Starring: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, January Jones, Eugene Levy, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Seann William Scott, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Fred Willard, Molly Cheek, Eric Allan Kramer, Deborah Rush, Nikki Scheiler-Ziering
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: R (for sexual content, language and crude humor)
Official Website: American-Wedding.com

Plot Summary: With East Great Falls High now just a memory, the kids have grown into young adults ready wreak havoc with a new rite of passage - Jim (Biggs) and Michelle (Hannigan) are getting married - in a hurry. Jim's grandmother is sick and wants to see Jim walk down the aisle, so they're going for it in two frantic weeks. Stifler (Scott) plans to be there (bridesmaids!), and more importantly to throw the ultimate bachelor party (strippers!). Finch (Thomas) is all for the hedonistic rituals, but not for letting Stifler steal the maid of honor, who happens to be Michelle's sexy younger sister, Cadence (Jones). While everybody else sweats and frets, Jim's Dad (Levy) is cool as ever, dispensing advice that no one wants to hear and getting ready for one of the best days of his life.

Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2003
- Take a pot shot but be warned.

 American Wedding is in a sense no different from the first two films although this is about that sacred institution – marriage. In 2003 Wedding has consummated unofficially monogamy and commitment – it wasn’t out of fashion in the first two films, it has just got mature. Whether the other films have been about serial monogamy or not the concluding episode entertains the possibility of life long commitment by mere implication of the wedding. The future could be, or ought to be, blue skies. This should be the youthful ideal in full blossom. But that doesn’t make the institution any better for the sake of it although it hopes in that allusive goal: can they stay together?    

 That’s where this franchise seems to naturally end. The film is unremarkable and lightweight and having taken the subject of weddings (surprisingly) seriously is unconvinced about the institution’s stability (so much for future films about gay marriage). I suppose that is because there is distrust regarding marriage as marriages end in divorce. There are plenty of other films that you could watch that think about love and marriage as the ideal (Ed Bundy aside, classical films, 30s – 60s, ad infinitum, for example).

 Call it a sign of the times. So this film plays out like a glowing utopian condom commercial where everything feels uncomplicated, not in that real romantic fashion, but in that extended family Greek-Italian mode. It always was about fun with the American Pie crowd. The uncertainties of relationships these days underline this comedy franchise. With all the preceding mayhem before the final wedding sequence (an over the top exaggeration about pre-wedding jitters) there is a sense that this uncertainty might carry through into the marriage.

 Sex always was the password in these American teen comedies - the relinquishing of childhood, the father-son conversation about the facts of life, the peep hole in the locker room, as you would expect from an American film about coming of age, aka Revenge of the Nerds, Road Trip. But the marriage in Wedding admits that people still think that sex and marriage holds more responsibility than the Stifler’s of this world take for granted.

 And sometimes the jokes around sex are funny. Good naturedly funny. This is entertaining but has a lacklustre middle that makes up for it in spirit. This sequel is more touchy feely than the other films, throwing in an old fashioned inter-generational gap, ties that bind story, with the franchise’s trademark over the top lack of sensibility.