American Wedding (2003)

The best part of the American Pie films for me has been the relationship between lovable yet geeky horndog Jim and Michelle the band geek who proved she has quite a wild side. First they hooked up at prom, then, in part two they genuinely fell in love. In this, the third (and for a while, final) film in the series, the film takes the logical route to a story that started with maturation and virginity loss and concludes with Jim proposing marriage to Michelle. What follows, as you might expect, is a zany plot filled ot the brim with gross out gags and crude sexual humor, as well as one bad thign after another happening, but all ends well, and, much like the first film, there's a good story here, as well as tons of heart, charm, and sweetness.Stiffler has never really been my favorite character, but he becoems quite the focus for a lot of the time. The way they handle his character thoguh marks a big turn for him, and he really shows his true colors, even if it means Finch (my favorite) and Kevin take a back seat to helping Jim get through all his problems to come out on top.The film sees the departure of several significant characters in the series, absent in reality due ot scheduling conflicts and difficulties with coming up with good plot lines for them all. It bugs me though, because there's no explanation given within the film for all of this. Now that, after a slew of spinoffs I've had no interest in it's been confirmed that there will be a return to the main series, I'm hoping like hell the filmmakers get their act together and address this issue.Things I liked about this film, aside from a logical storyline that people care about, and a good mix of heart to go with the raunch, the casting of the great Fred Willard as Michelle's dad, made even more fun by the fact that he and Eugene Levy together can ham it up as the well meaning and caring, but sometimes embarrasing dads. Seeing Finch and Stiffler trade roles and behavior in order to fight over Michelle's hot little sister (a young January Jones) is good too. The use of two versions (due to licensing issues) of the great Van Morrison song "Into the Mystic" during the big climax is great too. Overall, the film is a lot of fun and wraps up a good trilogy nicely. It's not perfect, and despite his coming around, there's still too much Stiffler and not enough of Jim's 'real' friends, although, like I said, the way they handle the Stiffler subplot acts works nicely. Oh and of course, you have to throw in John Cho and Jennifer Coolidge for good measure. I enjoyed this film, and think you should give it a shot.