Jason Biggs and Eugene Levy in "American Pie 2."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Jason Biggs and Chris Klein Director: J. B. Rogers Rated: R, with strong sex content, profanity and binge drinking Length: 104 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(August 10, 2001) -- Given the outrageous success of the first American Pie, it figures Hollywood would order up more pastry. Once again, teen sex fantasies are the prime ingredient.

In the first adolescent comedy, several male high school seniors make a pledge to lose their virginity before they graduate. The film then trace their haphazard and sometimes-funny efforts to do just that.

The result was alternately silly and sophomoric, offensively crude and surprisingly sweet - and American Pie 2 offers more of the same. Generally, they're the sort of films younger viewers guffaw along with, as older filmgoers giggle occasionally with embarrassment, barely suppressing the urge to cringe.

Imagine a Porky's or Animal House for a new generation, (though I wouldn't trade John Belushi bashing the folksinger's guitar for all the laughs in the Pie films.)

Pie 2 reunites the original cast, which offers an admittedly successful blend of youthful chemistry.

Jason Biggs is Jim, the most insecure and nerdiest of the gang; Chris Klein is the gentle, good-natured Oz; Thomas Ian Nicholas is Kevin, the group organizer; Eddie Kaye Thomas is Finch, the spacey intellectual; and Seann William Scott is Stifler, the annoying, rambunctious would-be sex machine of the group.

Also along again are the young women who masterfully control every situation. That's no surprise, given the boys' lack of maturity.

Shannon Elizabeth is Nadia, the sexy Czech exchange student, back for another visit; Alyson Hannigan is Michelle, the surprisingly adventurous flute player; Mena Suvari is Heather, Oz's girlfriend who heads for Europe for the summer; and Tara Reid is Vicky, who tells boyfriend Kevin the five words he most dreads: "Can't we just be friends?''

Also along again for a few amusing cameos is Eugene Levy as Jim's inept father, the chief cause of the youth's raging neuroses.

As American Pie 2 opens, the boys have finished their first year of college - and are only slightly more sexually experienced. Their goal now is to have the summer of their lives, shacked up together in a Lake Michigan lakeshore home, hosting an endless summer party to lure in new beach babes, along with old friends.

And, once again, when it comes to sex, the hyper-hormonal young men talk the talk FAR more than they walk the walk. Like the first film, Pie 2 is male locker room false bravado, taken to idiotic comic extremes.

Much of the film revolves around what the characters call the Rule of Three: If a guy says he's slept with three women, he really means one (or none). If a girl says she's slept with one guy, she really means three.

And, of course, this second slice offers viewers its own share of raunch: Stifler is urinated upon by guys relieving themselves off a balcony; the boys are teased by two demonstrative maybe-lesbians; and Jim mistakes glue for hand cream during a session of self-gratification.

If this sounds way too disgusting for you; that's probably the idea. Like the first film, the rowdy American Pie 2 has a specific young audience in mind. What the rest of us think of this film's over-sexed, sophomoric hi-jinks makes no never mind.

If we don't want Pie, we can always order cake and ice cream instead.