Reunion is little more than a roll call of worn-out punchlines and situational non sequiturs.
With its class of fresh-faced bright young things and summery pop-rock soundtrack, Paul Weitz's original slice of Pie was the American teen movie of its generation, inaugurating frat boy catchphrases such as 'MILF' into the public vocabulary and bringing a stomach-swirling new meaning to 'pale ale'.
If you were in the throes of puberty towards the turn of the Noughties, chances are the sight of a man inadvertently drinking another bloke's sap would have seemed like some unprecedented comedy apogee. Thirteen years on, that audience has grown up. But have Jim and the gang done the same, or are they still up to their old tricks? The answer comes sooner than you might expect.
With the baby down and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) in the bath, we rejoin Jim (Jason Biggs) mischievously drawing a crisp white gymsock and a tube of K-Y Jelly from his bedside dresser to the suggestive pulse of R Kelly's 'Bump N' Grind'. It's a tongue-in-cheek opening scene that works through fondness by familiarity. But as much as it's sure to raise a smile, it's also loaded with the sombre realisation that this was as good as it ever got for the majority of the primary cast.
The obvious exception is Seann William Scott, who, in the intermittent years since 2003's Wedding, has become the most legitimate star in the pack, and whose wedgie-inflicting scamp is the life and soul of this belated get together. Indeed, Reunion's best moments owe much to Scott's willingness to play the fool – Stifler's endearing immaturity proving most effective during the obligatory house party scene where he responds to the insinuation that half of the lacrosse team was gay with a look of ignorant bewilderment.
That said, writer-director pair Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg's over reliance on The Stifmeister keeps both nubile flesh and dick jokes far too high on the agenda. Suffice to say, if it's refined adult humour you're after, you won't find it here.
Perhaps in recognition of the cast's mixed fortunes post-Pie I (it's no surprise to see Tara Reid and Natasha Lyonne restricted to minor cameos), or perhaps to balance out the smut with some emotional poignancy, Reunion is alarmingly downbeat about life after 30.
Whether it's Jim and Michelle's marital rut, Jim's dad's (Eugene Levy) loneliness following the death of Jim's mother, Oz's (Chris Klein) hollow relationship with promiscuous rent-a-floozy Mia (Katrina Bowden) or Stifler's frustration at working a dead-end job, each character's abject misery encourages you to slip on a pair of rose-tinted specs, crank up the Kula Shaker and look back to when your life's grand ambition amounted to deseeding the schoolbus dolly.
This was always going to be a plot-light nostalgia trip, but with so many loose ends to bow, in-jokes to reference and faces to bid adieu to, Reunion is little more than a roll call of worn-out punchlines and situational non sequiturs. An awkward and undignified fumble between estranged friends that skips the foreplay altogether and cuts straight to a grown man ejaculating directly into his own mouth.
Catching up with old friends is always fun.
Until you remember why it's been so long since you last saw them.
We'll call you.
