Reviewed by Colin Jacobson

In addition to death and taxes, we should include sequels as one of life’s inevitabilities. When American Pie became a surprise hit in 1999, it became absolutely unavoidable that we’d see a “second helping” before too long.

“Before too long” took place in the summer of 2001 when American Pie 2 hit multiplexes. Although most sequels don’t approach the takes of the originals, 2001 was a weird summer. Three flicks actually did better than their predecessors. Rush Hour 2 and The Mummy Returns fell into that category, as did Pie 2. Its $145 gross was a huge improvement over the first one’s $101 million. This likely renders Pie 3 as yet another inevitability.

Actor Seann William Scott went on record and indicated he’d decline absurd amounts of money rather than make a third Pie flick. Bizarrely, this means that two of the three uber-sequels of 2001 include actors who have absolutely no interest in a third rendition; Mummy’s Rachel Weisz also stated she’d turn down tons of millions of dollars rather than revisit her character.

Whether either of these defections will actually prevent the inevitable remains to be seen. Personally, I’d be happy to see another Mummy film, as Returns was a fairly fun and exciting affair, but I really hope this is the end of the line for the Pie gang. While the first film was surprisingly warm and endearing, the sequel did nothing more than badly rehash the events and themes of the original but it omits most of the elements that allowed Pie to succeed.

Pie 2 picks up on the crew almost a year after we last saw them. Pie ended with their prom, whereas Pie 2 sees the characters at the conclusion of their freshman year of college. All of them are set to head home for the summer, where they plan to reunite and party until Labor Day.

Not much seems to have changed during the interim. Jim (Jason Biggs) never heard from one-night-stand Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) and he still lusts after long-departed almost-stand Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth). He nearly bags his second sexual conquest at the start of the film, but he remains a romantic loser for comic reasons.

Oz (Chris Klein) and Heather (Mena Suvari) remain a couple, but since she’s going to study abroad for the summer, their faithfulness may be tested. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and Vicki (Tara Reid) split after prom, and they try to maintain a friendly relationship, but Kevin’s finding that tougher to do than he thought. Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) still pines for Stifler’s mom (Jennifer Coolidge), while Stifler himself (Scott) remains an abrasive partying jerk.

Kevin finds himself depressed about his split with Vicki, so his brother (Casey Affleck) gives him a hot tip to supercharge the summer: rent a particular beach house. He and the gang do this, so the four main guys of Pie along with Stifler head for the lake, where they plan to party and get laid.

Essentially Pie 2 follows the loosely structured events of the summer. Pie split its focus fairly evenly among its subjects; Jim was the breakthrough character, but his time didn’t take great precedence over the others, as we saw reasonably equal takes on Finch, Kevin and Oz. Stifler was a minor supporting role in Pie, but he became popular enough to warrant a bigger presence in the sequel.

Actually, Stifler gets a much larger part here, as he’s really the second lead. Except for Jim, we see more of Stifler than any other character in Pie 2. Finch gets a fair amount of play as he explores the world of tantric sex, but mainly we watch Jim as he tries to learn how to be a good lover and Stifler as he acts like a jerk. Kevin and Oz become very minor participants and seem to vanish for much of the movie.

Pie 2 also radically diminishes the prominence of the females. Nadia and Jessica (Natasha Lyonne) were fairly small parts originally, but they drop even more here, while Vicki and Heather appear so infrequently that they become little more than cameos. Of the women, only Michelle gets an increase in presence. Just like Stifler, she played a minor role in the original but proved to be very popular with audiences. As such, Michelle turns into the only female character who gets any real screen time.

This inequity is one of the main reasons why Pie 2 doesn’t even remotely approach the success of its predecessor. While the first Pie made its name on outrageous gags, at its heart it was really a warm and endearing piece that treated most of its characters with warmth and tenderness. It created a roster of likeable roles who came across naturally and believably.

In Pie 2, it felt as though the filmmakers simply wanted to milk our affection for the characters. The movie has no reason to exist other than to make money. Granted, some might argue that of most Hollywood movies, but I thought Pie was a nice take on the standard “coming of age” story, largely because of the way it treated its characters.

Pie 2, on the other hand, just wants to celebrate the wilder moments of the first while it diminishes that flick’s human moments. Is it a coincidence that Kevin and Oz, the two leads who maintained real relationships in Pie, are reduced to little more than guest stars in Pie 2? No, it’s not, and this reduction of character emphasis is a major failing of the sequel.

It also doesn’t help that most of the new material simply isn’t very funny. I get the impression that writers sat down and brainstormed gags that they thought would be more disgusting and/or more outrageous than those in the original film. Once done with this, they then created a loose framework around the jokes and called it a story.

Granted, Pie didn’t have one of the world’s great narratives, but at least it tried to tell a tale. Pie 2 is nothing more than a vague conglomeration of skits. There’s Jim as he superglues his hand to his wiener. There’s Stifler as someone pisses on his head. There’s Jim, Stifler and Finch as some apparent lesbians force them to get intimate with each other.

The only positive I can find comes from the new emphasis on Michelle. Stifler’s still kind of funny, but the film never attempts to expand the character, and that’s fine; Stifler would look ridiculous if they tried to turn him into a real human being. Michelle, on the other hand, has more room for growth, and in the film’s only real acting, Hannigan nicely expresses her various emotions while she keeps her fairly amusing.

The rest of the cast looks somewhat embarrassed to be there. Actually, they should be happy they still get work. Over the two years between films, only one of the performers appeared in an actual hit: Mena Suvari had a supporting role in 1999’s American Beauty. Otherwise, the multiplexes as littered with flops like Biggs’ Saving Silverman and Loser - which also starred Suvari - plus Elizabeth’s Tomcats, Klein’s Say It Isn’t So, Suvari’s Sugar and Spice, Reid’s Josie and the Pussycats, Thomas’ Freddy Got Fingered, and Scott’s Road Trip, Dude, Where’s My Car? and Evolution. Man, that’s a long list of losers, especially for a short period of time.

Sadly, I didn’t even include all of the bombs on which the Pie gang worked, and I won’t even get into the stinkers on which other crewmembers toiled. Anyway, despite this poor track record, the actors look unenthusiastic about this affair, and who can blame them? American Pie 2 is nothing more than a stale rehash of the first movie. It fails to deliver any of that flick’s positive qualities while it mindlessly emulates its more base qualities. The gross-out gags were fine in Pie because they weren’t the focus. Here they are, and that misguided emphasis means that Pie 2 falls flat.

Note: this DVD offers the unrated version of American Pie 2. It runs about six minutes longer than the "R"-rated edition. Many looked forward to this enterprise with the hopes of additional smut, but they'll be fairly disappointed.

On the positive side, we do find a little extra hotness in the lesbian scene. Starting at around 54:14, we see Amber (the blonde) remove the top of Danielle (the brunette) and perform some minor chest-kissing; in the "R"-rated version, it cuts straight to Danielle pulling up her bra.

Otherwise, the unrated edition totally lacks any new nudity or sexy material. Essentially the editions were cut for time, not due to content. A lot of them feature crudeness from Stifler; he boots some high school boys from his party, he badgers Oz about his refusal to bang someone other than Heather, and he confronts Finch. We find some expositional material as well, such as additional footage about the party-busting that affected the boys' return from college.

Overall, most of the additions appear in the first half of the film, though the single longest new snippet occurs when Jim and his dad sit in the hospital waiting room. Eugene Levy goes off on a semi-extended rant for this almost two-minute piece. Otherwise, the clips all lasted less than a minute, and most ran maybe 10 to 20 seconds. I counted 15 additions in all.

Do these substantially alter the movie? No, because most are so brief. In any case, fans will probably prefer the unrated cut; none of the new material harms the film.

American Pie 2 appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this single-sided, dual-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Though it looked a little rough at the start, Pie 2 cleaned up its act after a while and offered a generally solid visual experience.

Sharpness usually came across as clearly defined and distinct. Some wide shots appeared a bit soft and fuzzy at times, particularly during the first half of the film. However, these remained rare, as most of the flick seemed accurate and detailed. Jagged edges and moiré effects caused no concerns, and only a smidgen of edge enhancement was visible. Print flaws weren’t a big issue, but I did see some light grain and a little grit at times. Again, these caused issues mainly during the first portion of the movie; it became cleaner as it progressed.

Colors were a strength in the original Pie, and they continue to look good during the sequel. The hues consistently seemed warm and rich, and they created a nicely naturalistic presence. No problems with noise, bleeding or other issues occurred.

The biggest weakness of the first Pie stemmed from the darkness of its image. That flick was nearly impenetrable at times. This didn’t seem to be a problem attached to the DVD, as it just appeared to have been filmed that way. Pie 2 also showed some excessive opacity at times, but not as strongly as in the original. The early shots looked a bit dense and murky, but they cleared up pretty well as the movie progressed. Black levels also seemed nicely dark and deep. Overall, American Pie 2 wasn’t a top-notch transfer, but it appeared reasonably good.

Also decent but unexciting were the soundtracks of American Pie 2. As with many Universal DVDs, it included both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 mixes. If any significant differences existed between the two, I couldn’t discern them. To these ears, both the DTS and Dolby tracks sounded virtually identical.

The soundfields seemed typical of this kind of comedy. Most of the audio remained pretty heavily anchored to the front channels. Music showed very solid stereo imaging and delineation, and various ambient effects also spread nicely across the front, but nothing terribly exciting occurred along the way. The elements blended together reasonably well and created an acceptable presence. Surround usage remained quite subdued. They offered good support of the music, but effects stayed minor. The rears kicked to life modestly due to crowd noise at a band camp performance, and the beach scenes also added more active atmosphere, but these were nothing special.

Audio quality appeared fine for the most part. Speech sounded natural and distinct, and I heard no problems related to intelligibility or edginess. Some poorly integrated looping occurred, but the quality of the lines seemed good. Effects were a minor aspect of the mix, but they sounded acceptably accurate and distinct, with no signs of distortion or any problems. Music also was clear and crisp, but I felt the many rock tunes lacked much low-end. Bass response was marginally adequate, and the track didn’t give us the normal levels of warmth and depth. Overall, the soundtracks of American Pie 2 got the job done, but they seemed fairly lackluster.

Some DVDs provide questionable claims on their packaging in regard to the amount of extras they include. For example, Shrek wanted us to believe that it included more than 11 hours of material. That might be true if we include watching the movie four times.

American Pie 2 states that it provides “over 10 hours of entertainment!” You’ll have to decide for yourself if the extras are actually entertaining, but I won’t quibble with the time component, mainly because this sucker packs an amazing four audio commentaries! This makes Pie 2 a member of a very elite club, as only a handful of DVDs have included that many audio commentaries. Fight Club and Se7en gave us that many, and there might be others as well, but those are the only examples I can recall.

(Spooky insight: both Fight Club and Se7en were directed by David Fincher, whereas Pie 2 includes a character named Finch! Coincidence? Uh, yeah, but it’s still kinda cool!)

The first commentary comes from director J.B. Rogers who offers a running, screen-specific affair. Unfortunately, much of Rogers’ material tends toward simple narration of on-screen events, onto which he often adds statements about how great everyone was and how much fun everything was. At times, Rogers provides some interesting and informative remarks about the making of the film, but these are greatly outweighed by tedious discussions of obvious material. It’s a pretty dull commentary.

Next we hear from writer Adam Herz in his own running, screen-specific commentary. On the negative side, Herz lets a few too many pauses take place; these are never very long, and they’re not terrible frequent, but they do take place. Otherwise, this is a pretty compelling commentary. Herz aptly discusses the challenges of writing a sequel and gives us an overview of what he wanted to accomplish. He also adds some nice remarks about the whole screenwriting process and the structuring of a script. He avoids much of the standard happy talk that we hear in Rogers’ track, and Herz offers a consistently breezy and interesting piece.

The other two commentaries come from actors. First up is a track from Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, and Thomas Ian Nicholas. All three were recorded together for this running, screen-specific piece. On paper, this sounds like a fun prospect, but in reality, it’s often painful, largely due to Suvari. She may be the winner of the 2001 edition of the Melanie Griffith Dopiest Commentary Participant award, as she seems to be in her own world throughout the track. And it’s an obnoxious world where she spouts inanities on a consistent basis.

The guys fare a little better, but the commentary remains weak. Nicholas has little to say other than to offer a recurring joke about how they gave all Kevin’s lines to Jim. Biggs offers the most information, which makes sense since he’s the only performer of the three who actually has a substantial role in the movie. Unfortunately, his occasional tidbits aren’t enough to save this painfully annoying track.

The fourth and final commentary offers actor Eddie Kaye Thomas, who works alone for his running, screen-specific track. After the misery I endured with the prior commentary, this one felt like gold, but in reality, it’s a pretty mediocre piece. However, I don’t blame Thomas for that fact. Since he’s left alone, he has to carry the whole load. That’s fine for a director or screenwriter who are involved with a whole production, and a lead actor who’s in most parts of a movie would be good as well.

However, since Thomas only shows up occasionally, we see lots of scenes in which he didn’t participate. That means we find quite a few empty spaces, as Thomas often doesn’t have much to say. Otherwise, he offers some decent remarks at times, including an amusing story about an incident that inspired the disdain of Eugene Levy. Overall, this commentary is decent but nothing special.

After all those commentaries, we move to a slew of video extras. The Baking of American Pie 2 offers a very standard promotional featurette. The 24-minute piece includes some candid footage from the set, film clips, and interviews with director J.B. Rogers, screenwriter Adam Herz, producer Chris Moore, and actors Jason Biggs, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Eugene Levy, Chris Klein, Tara Reid, Natasha Lyonne, Mena Suvari, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan, Seann William Scott, and Eddie Kaye Thomas.

Despite the length of that roster, don’t expect to hear anything terribly revealing from “Baking”. This may be the longest trailer ever created, as the vast majority of the show simply tells us about the story and the characters. Though some decent behind the scenes appear - including some fun shots of Levy as he improvises - the program provides way too many snippets from the film. Overall, “Baking” is extremely promotional and pretty dull.

Good Times With Cast and Crew essentially acts as a combination of behind the scenes material and outtakes. Basically, the five-minute and 17-second piece shows various wacky moments from the set, some of which already appear in “Baking”. It’s mildly interesting but not anything terribly special.

Next we find the true Outtakes reel, which really does look a lot like “Good Times”. Some of the same footage shows up here; it differs only because the “Good Times” material is videotaped, whereas the “Outtakes” are filmed. It provides the usual flubs and nuttiness, so if you like that kind of thing, this five-minute and 25-second program should entertain you. I think it would have made more sense to simply combine “Good Times” and “Outtakes” into one piece; they’re both pretty similar.

More interesting are the Original Casting Tapes From American Pie. These offer exactly what they describe: snippets of the auditions for six of the actors. We see clips for Jason Biggs, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, and Eddie Kaye Thomas. The pieces run between 54 seconds and 101 seconds for a total of seven minutes and 29 seconds of footage. This stuff’s fun to see, especially since Thomas’ audition stuck him with the diarrhea scene from the first film. It seems odd that these clips didn’t show up on any of the two prior releases of Pie. Geez, the last one was touted as the “Ultimate Edition”, but obviously that wasn’t correct. In any case, I’m happy to see these pieces here.

Also compelling are the Deleted Scenes. We find seven of these. They last between 42 seconds and two minutes and 50 seconds for a total of 10 minutes and 27 seconds of footage. For the most part, these clips help expand the characters, and there’s actually some good stuff here; a few of the scenes really should have made the final cut, as they would have added depth to the flick.

At the end of “Baking”, we see part of a music video for 3 Doors Down’s “Be Like That”. Elsewhere on the DVD, we get the entire thing. The clip uses the standard combination of lip-synched performance and movie snippets, and it runs three minutes and 55 seconds. It’s a pretty blah song and video, but it’s not terrible.

The next three features all offer different ways to watch parts of the movie. Your Favorite Piece of Pie provides 10 scenes that fans picked as the best of the two films. Hosted by a bearded Seann William Scott, we get five each for the two flicks. It’s not anything terribly compelling, but I guess it’s sort of fun, especially since we find footage from the first film.

The other two options repeat features found on the original Pie DVDs. Music Highlights lets you skip straight to any of 30 songs featured in the film, and Classic Quotes sends you right to any of 15 different phrases in the movie. Neither of these does much for me, but they're thoughtful additions.

This DVD’s treatment of the film’s theatrical trailer does something different. The two and a half minute ad itself appears on its own but it’s preceded by a 45-second fake public service announcement from Jason Biggs. It’s a cute touch that makes this the second time in recent memory I’ve seen something unusual accompany a trailer; Frank Oz actually offered an audio commentary for the teaser on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The DVD’s Production Notes are surprisingly brief and uninformative. Universal usually include fairly good text on their DVDs, but this one’s a dud. The notes inside the package’s booklet are different but not any better.

Cast and Filmmakers provides listings for director Rogers, screenwriter Herz, executive producers Chris and Paul Weisz, and actors Biggs, Elizabeth, Hannigan, Klein, Lyonne, Nicholas, Reid, Scott, Suvari, Thomas, and Levy. These are quite brief and not very useful. Oddly, the “Filmmakers” biographies don’t include filmographies, though the “Cast” entries do.

The Universal Showcase resurrects a feature that used to be fairly commonplace on their DVDs but that has largely disappeared. Here we find a trailer for the upcoming theatrical release of The Bourne Identity. The movie itself doesn’t look like anything special, but I like this feature and hope it shows up more frequently.

In a more dubious trend, the DVD includes some American Pie 2 Special Offers. As was the case with DVDs like Jurassic Park III and The Fast and the Furious, this one provides Universal Special Offers. This means we find ads for their theme parks and for the movie’s soundtrack album. Whoopee!

At least one Easter egg pops up on Pie 2, and it’s a nearly literal one at that. Go to the second “Bonus Materials” screen and click “up” until you highlight the phrase “Bonus Materials”. Hit enter and you’ll see a 25 second clip during which some cast members mock you.

American Pie 2 packs some DVD-ROM materials as well. "Stifler’s Mixer" lets you combine music stems, soundbites and various effects from the film to make your own little tune. It seems lame at first, but it actually offers a surprising amount of fun.

"About the Filmmakers" expands the brief biographies seen on the main part of the DVD. We still find entries for director Rogers, screenwriter Herz, and executive producers Chris and Paul Weitz, but we also get listings for producers Chris Moore, Craig Perry, and Warren Zide plus a very short mention of storywriter David H. Steinberg. In addition, Rogers’ slot includes two brief and somewhat bland video interview snippets. The DVD-ROM "Production Notes" offer greater depth than those found elsewhere in this package. They still aren’t anything special, but they definitely improve on the others.

Finally, Pie 2 includes the usual complement of "Weblinks." We get connections to: Universal Theme Parks; Universal Home Video; Universal Pictures; Universal Studios; and the Universal DVD Newsletter. Overall, though “Stifler’s Mix” is fun, the DVD-ROM content didn’t add a lot to the package.

Since I enjoyed the first film, I looked forward to seeing American Pie 2, but unfortunately, it was largely a dud. It came across as a pale imitation of the first that recapitulated that flick’s more extreme moments but omitted any of its heart or character. The DVD offered decent but unspectacular picture and sound while it packed in a slew of extras, including an amazing four audio commentaries. If you’re already a fan of American Pie 2, you should be happy with this DVD, but others should just stick with the original and skip this clunker.