American Reunion

American Reunion - Dirs. Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg (2012)

In 1999, American Pie was a smash hit thanks to an assortment of lowbrow gags that have become ensconced into pop culture consciousness. Movie fans will never forget the sight of Jason Biggs humping a warm apple pie or the shapely Shannon Elizabeth stripping to her undies. Universal certainly raked it in as the film made over $235 million worldwide off a scant $11 million budget. The studio was quick to strike while the iron was hot with two sequels and a string of direct-to-video spinoffs with Eugene Levy as the only original cast member. After nine years since the last Pie picture was released theatrically, Universal resurrects the franchise with American Reunion.

Jim (Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) are happily married with a son, but find it difficult to be intimate with one another. Following in the tradition of its predecessors, Reunion opens with the hapless Jim caught in an embarrassing situation as he attempts to pleasure himself. The couple hopes that their upcoming thirteenth high school reunion will give them a chance to reignite the flame. By the way, I know tenth, fifteenth, and twentieth anniversary reunions are a thing, but the thirteenth doesn't seem that big a deal. In any event, Jim is excited to see all his old buddies again. His plans are crimped when he has to fend off the amorous advances of Kara (Ali Cobrin), a high school senior he once babysat.

Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) has become a successful architect and a slightly domesticated husband. Oz (Chris Klein) is now an NFL analyst for a cable sports network with a young supermodel girlfriend in Mia (Katrina Bowden). He's also the butt of a few jokes for his appearance on a Dancing with the Stars-type reality show. Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) dropped off the radar, but returns just in time with tales of traveling the world. Then, there's Stifler (Seann William Scott), who the others have been trying to avoid because he hasn't changed much.

Nearly everyone from the first film has returned in some small fashion with John Cho & Justin Isfeld as the MILF Guys, Chris Owen as the Sherminator, Natasha Lyonne as Jessica, and Shannon Elizabeth as Nadia. They are joined by new cast members Dania Ramirez, as a former band geek turned hottie, and Rebecca De Mornay (who still looks stunning at 52) as Finch's Mom.

The reins of the franchise have been handed off to Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, the writers behind the Harold & Kumar series. If anyone knows potty humor, it's them. However, the jokes just aren't funny or as outrageous as previous installments or even movies like 21 Jump Street or Knocked Up. Time has just passed them by. We get the requisite boob shots when Jim is forced to sneak an unconscious and naked Kara into her house without her parents knowing. Another prominent gag finds Stifler defecating into a cooler.

This wouldn't be too much of a problem if the character moments had any semblance of depth. Poor Thomas Ian Nicholas generally gets the short end of the stick as the writers struggle to find anything interesting for his character. In a rehash of American Pie 2, Kevin has an awkward encounter with his ex, Vicky (Tara Reid). Oz goes through the same thing with his former flame, Heather (Mena Suvari). These storylines highlight just how terribly written the female characters are in Reunion. They are either thinly drawn lovesick girls or nymphomaniac party skanks with the exception of Alyson Hannigan, who really deserves better. The one B-story that yields some fruit belongs to Levy as Jim's Dad, who looks to get back into the singles game following the death of his wife. He winds up romancing the original MILF, Stifler's Mom (Jennifer Coolidge).

As Thomas Wolfe once wrote, "You can't go home again." The central theme of American Reunion is all about living in the present without looking back at the past through rose-colored lenses. If only the filmmakers took those same lessons to heart, then we wouldn't get this bland and humorless sequel that simply did not need to be made.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li - Dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak (2009)


Legend of Chun-Li takes the Batman Begins approach in its realistic reboot of the Street Fighter franchise. Usually in a reboot, you’re supposed to make it better, but the new and improved Street Fighter is actually even worse than the Van Damme vehicle. The previous Street Fighter achieved a transcendent Batman & Robin level of awfulness that it could be enjoyed in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 type of way. There is no joy with this latest installment which gives us the much-needed back story of a video game character.

Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk takes on the titular role of Chun-Li, one of Street Fighter's few female combatants. She is re-envisioned as a piano prodigy trained in wu-shu by her father who is eventually kidnapped by the villainous M. Bison (Neal McDonough). This time around, Bison ditches the red military uniform for a tailor-made business suit. Bison is an Irish orphan left behind to grow up on the streets of Bangkok. Despite living in Thailand nearly all his life, he still has an Irish accent. Or at least, it’s supposed to be an Irish accent. I think Neal McDonough went to the Kevin Costner school of accents to learn it. Chun-Li grows older (and less Asian) until she receives a mysterious scroll that sends her to Thailand in search of a martial arts master named Gen (Robin Shou in yet another video game role). Previously living a pampered life, Chun-Li struggles on the streets until Gen decides she’s ready for the requisite training montage. She gets plenty sweaty and dirty for those of you into that sort of thing. Once that’s over and done with, Chun-Li can work on taking down Bison’s criminal syndicate, Shadowloo.

Don’t look for any appearances from Guile, E. Honda, or Sagat. The only other characters from the video game in the film are Bison’s henchmen, Balrog (Michael Clarke Duncan) and Vega (Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas). There’s also a subplot involving Moon Bloodgood as a Thai detective teaming up with Interpol agent Charlie Nash (Chris Klein).

If not for the titles, nothing in the film screams out, Street Fighter, and not just because we never hear anybody shout, “Shoryuken” or “Tiger Uppercut.” Chun-Li wears a blue dress and puts her hair up in buns for a lesbian nightclub dance scene (don’t ask). She also busts out the Kikouken and a variation of the Spinning Bird Kick as a nod to the game. That’s about it. All the color of the games has been sapped for the adaptation.

For a film called Street Fighter, there isn’t as much fighting as you’d expect. What action there is has been shot as blandly as possible by Bartkowiak whose stellar filmography includes Cradle 2 the Grave, Romeo Must Die, Doom, and Exit Wounds. His streak of crappy films remains unbroken.

Screenwriter Justin Marks has recently become the wunderkind of genre films. He’s been tasked to write the scripts for new versions of He-Man and Voltron as well as the comic book adaptations Hack/Slash and Supermax (starring Green Arrow). Chun-Li is his first produced credit and I can only hope his skills have greatly improved since this sad effort. The film’s worst sin is treating its audience as a bunch of idiots with the attention span of a goldfish. The movie is dotted with narration by Kreuk which helpfully points out all the nuanced, multi-layered motivations and emotional turmoil that we just couldn’t figure out for ourselves.

While nobody expects award-winning acting in a video game movie, special attention MUST be called to the acting of Chris Klein which is so horrendous that it borders on some type of twisted performance art. Klein sports stubble in a tough guy cop role that straddles the thin line of parody, falling somewhere between Sonny Crockett and Nic Cage. Klein’s mind-boggling line readings will likely pop up on YouTube as a video response to Cage’s infamous “Ah, not the bees, not the bees” performance in the ill-advised Wicker Man remake.

Rating: DUD