Breasts, bits, sex and swearing: welcome back teensploitation.
The leads in this third slice of pie may be graduates, but their characteristics remain the same. Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is still a square, Stifler (Seann William Scott) a jock and Jim (Jason Biggs) a self-confessed "perv", about to marry his "nympho" girlfriend, Michelle (Alyson Hannigan).
As franchise fans will expect, getting hitched isn't hitch-free.
Within 15 minutes, Jim's lost his trousers twice - once when proposing, then meeting the in-laws. Dog molesting, excrement-eating and pubic hair problems follow, as the gross-out genre gets a kick in the noughties.
So, then, not exactly Shakespeare - although the Bard wasn't averse to a spot of smut. In fact, from "As You Like It" to "The Canterbury Tales", popular entertainment has long had recourse to groin-centric humour.
Simply, it's fun. Crude and lewd, yes. In bad taste, no question. But "The Wedding" will make you laugh. "American Pie" re-started a cycle of teen sex comedies which, to use the vernacular, blew. Even its sequel sucked - reducing the characters to cardboard cutouts, souring the sweet kids of the original.
"AP3" is just as crass, but includes just enough sweetness with the sour. Jim is a likeable everykid, but it's Eugene Levy who injects heart, as the caring father given to sharing too much information ("Your mother can still make me squeal like a pig").
Amid the effing and grinding, there's a moral message to the movie. Making a marriage work requires "compromise and sacrifice", says Jim's dad, while his schmucky son tells his bride-to-be, "I think you and I are a perfectly natural, normal thing".
Brief and underplayed, these scenes are sentimental without being cloying: promoting acceptance amid the buffoonery and bawdiness. Some things still sit uneasy - the stripper sequence feels degrading - but the target audience will lap it up. No sniggering at the back.
"American Pie: The Wedding" is released in UK cinemas on Friday 15th August 2003.
American Pie: The Wedding (2003)
