American Reunion 2012

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The movie's message is that the way to face impeding maturity is to embrace your inner teen idiot. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: Be assured you already know exactly what lies within here. That's what makes the picture so comforting. No surprises. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: It's got some pretty good jokes, too. OK, maybe they aren't that good, but they're performed with excellent timing. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: It has some good moments, but it goes on too long, and not enough happens that is likely to create new memories. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Filled with more characters and subplots than Middlemarch, American Reunion has a lot of business to attend to, and takes its time getting it done, working through a checklist of items from previous films in the process. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's sort of like visiting your hometown and running into that kid you kind of, sort of knew in high school. You weren't asking for an update, but it's pleasant enough to get one. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: "American Reunion" relies on cliches about nostalgia, forced tension over strained friendships and melodrama about the rekindling of first loves. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Just to be clear: 13 is how many years have passed since the first film. It's also a number that's such bad news that elevators skip it all together. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Every other line, it seems, refers to "back in the day" or "wasn't this more fun when we were younger?" or how "old" they're feeling. You'd think this was a remake of "Cocoon." Read more

Ricardo Baca, Denver Post: Yes, American Reunion is a juvenile outing. They steal jet skis and defecate in beer coolers. They cheat on their girlfriends and lie to their best friends. But what did you expect? Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Reunion" should be the last slice of "Pie," America. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: As it turns out, the recipe has been updated, and what once seemed like fatally warmed-over Pie tastes new again. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Being pantsless in the kitchen isn't quite as endearing for a thirtysomething dad, and kicking the joke up a notch with frontal nudity -- updating it for the Apatow age -- just emphasizes how old this franchise is. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: A mediocre and all-too obvious sequel that utterly fails to recapture the youthful spark of its original. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The movie never overcomes the feeling that it is - above all else - an attempt to wring a few more dollars out from a once-profitable franchise. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: In the end, "American Reunion" even gets away with its sequel-baiting closing line: "Till next time!" Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: None of it makes much of an impression, although there are a few nice and surprisingly heartfelt moments around the edges. Read more

Andrew Lapin, NPR: It's kind of sad, in a way. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Doesn't provide the generational high producers thought it would; this isn't exactly the cast of "American Graffiti." Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Overall, the level of wit and invention from writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg is well below their scripts for the three "Harold and Kumar" movies. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's a reunion that finds the old friends grappling with new dilemmas. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: American Reunion tries to use nudity, sex, and fecal matter to generate laughter, but the jokes are tired and predictable. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: "American Reunion" has a sense of deja vu, but it still delivers a lot of nice laughs. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: American Reunion reminds us what we liked about the original: the way the movie sweetened its raunch to build a rooting interest in these characters. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: The entire film is a mistake. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Rare is the movie that brings "American Pie" to mind and suffers by comparison, but here we have one. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The split of hormonal sleaze to cornball sap is still about 50/50, yet like a chance meeting with an old love, it doesn't produce the expected magic. Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: Confirms the perception that only losers attend high-school reunions. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Bad enough that the film is smutty and that most of the female characters are either bores or bitches, but there are almost no laughs, save what Scott valiantly squeezes out of Stifler's antics. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Outside of porn, there has never been a movie with so many shots of grown men eyeing teenage girls' backsides. The result is fitfully amusing but more often just creepy. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Millennial nostalgia still feels mighty weird-and not quite the stuff of comedy-in this latest, half-limp sequel to American Pie. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: American Reunion, remarkably, might just be the funniest issue yet from the American Pie franchise factory. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: A strained, relentless quest for gross-out humor and outlandish sexual escapades. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: While it's poignant seeing the whole gang again, the tired gross-out antics and limp romantic reprisals keep this hapless if heartfelt effort from qualifying as a decent comedy, let alone a generational classic. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: Taken altogether, the Pie movies offer a cohesive worldview, showing each of life's stages as the setting for fresh-yet-familiar catastrophes, relieved by a belief in sex, however ridiculous it might look, as a restorative force. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: An aggressively crass - and not especially funny - trip down memory lane, an attempt to recapture the sweetly ribald magic of the earlier film. Read more