Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
My brother told me that American Pie 2 was perhaps funnier than the first, but couldn't exist without its prequel. When I finally got around to seeing it, I had to agree. At least, its humor is contingent on the viewer having seen the original. Much of the character development is based on characters not very well developed in the first movie; for example, the Steven Stifler character (played by Sean William Scott) parades around the entire movie instead of just being a jackass for some of the time as in the first.
American Pie 2 is a very on-the-surface type of film. It doesn't ask much of its viewers, and, in return, they do not ask for very much back. This is not to say that there isn't a market, or even a need, for films like this, but it is being honest. If you need to know what the characters are feeling, just look into their giant anime-like eyes, idiotic expressions or naked bodies (one of the three should suffice for any given moment in the movie). However, I was confronted with two moments worth mentioning that I found to be a lot more thought-provoking than I had anticipated.
The first moment that I found interesting came at the very beginning of the movie. Jim's (Jason Biggs) father, played by former "SCTV" great and Splash legend Eugene Levy, catches his son having what can only be described as casual sex with a girl known only as "Natalie." The implications of their meeting are questionable at best, but the viewer is not given enough time to really think about why they have decided to sleep together. Jim is very conscientious of being bad in the sack as witnessed by the whole world in his splat - "oh no Nadia, don't go" - splat routine in American Pie. Just as the two are starting to really get it on, Jim's dad walks in and all hell breaks loose.
This is perfect American Pie humor: situational sexual comedy. As the viewer knows, he can expect a lot more of people encountering others doing "private" or otherwise sexual acts. The point here isn't the discovery by Jim's father, but, rather, what happens afterward, when Jim's mother enters the scene. She carries with her, aptly, an "American" apple pie as a would-be present for her son. By the time she enters the scene, her son is sitting on the floor wrapped in blankets while Natalie huddles in the corner. Jim's mother screams out, "I made your favorite - Oh my God!" and drops the pie. The pie splatters on the floor, followed by the camera. The camera shows us the pie, all mashed up on the ground, and here comes that contingency I referred to above.
Any viewer of the original movie will remember Jim's encounter with an apple pie as he attempts to simulate sex with a woman. He tries to "have sex" with an apple pie his mother recently made only to be discovered by his father. (A study of possible "safe" spaces in the two films would be interesting, as the bathroom, the bedroom, and a locked room are all subject to outside inquiry.) The camera cuts to a picture of the pie - "disheveled," one might call it - and his father says, "Well, we'll just have to tell your mother that we ate it all."
This is all brought immediately back, of course, by the picture of the newly disheveled pie that Jim's mother drops. It signifies both the doubling that this movie will use (as it certainly does with the innumerable new discoveries of Jim in various precarious spots) to call attention to its predecessor, but it also acts a sexual metaphor. Jim, until the end of the film, is destined to continue his rounds of failing to a) satisfy a girl, b) perform a sexual act to completion or c) to simply have control over his life without someone else barging in on him.
Which brings us to our second moment of the movie: Stifler's party. In the attempt to rekindle high school party life, the four friends meet back at Stifler's house for, hopefully, another one of Stifler's classic blowout parties. All the old crew is there, save for Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), who is traveling, and hilarity ensues. What is interesting about this party is that the camera work mirrors the camera work of the original film. The shots containing Oz (Chris Klein), Jim and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) are identical to the shots in the first movie. And it is during these very "redoubled" shots that the kids lament about how they hope that things have changed. They are quite literally boxed in by the framing of the camera and will not be able to escape reliving all of their high-school woes until they actively try to change things.
It is at this point in the movie that one can declare without a shadow of a doubt that the plot of this film will have to involve something decidedly different than the first one. In fact, going away for the summer is perhaps the kids' only option at trying for something new. The passage of time during their summer is odd, as only a few moments here and there are captured until we finally come to the final party of the summer. But these moments are really not all that important as the only piece of finality of the film comes with the recognition that "you can't go home again" and all that clichd bullshit.
Which would lead me to assert that you really can't watch American Pie 2 without having seen American Pie . A marketing scheme? Perhaps. But more likely, it was a few interesting moments that caught the director's attention when filming what started out to be a very on-the-surface sequel.
