American Pie

Dallas Observer Glenn Gaslin

It's painful, it's real, and it's probably the funniest thing you'll see this year...a teen sexploitation classic.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

In addition to being extremely funny, the film has a warm spirit and respect for the characters.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Vulgar and lewd and raunchy like you wouldn't believe, and absolutely hilarious from beginning to end.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Unusual in its ability to mix bodily functions humor with a sincere and unlooked-for sense of decency.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Pie has some nice surprises and is enjoyable in a smutty, sitcom way. It offers up the outrageousness of "There's Something About Mary" without wallowing in cruelty.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Guaranteed to beguile anyone who can remember the joy -- and agony -- of anticipating the first time.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A lively, disposable hybrid of the sincere and the synthetic.

USA Today Mike Clark

The presence of "Election's" Chris Klein as the male contingent's most sensitive member only emphasizes how much smarter that high school comedy was.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The successful bits, along with an amiable cast of losers and their prom-night prey, make American Pie a winner.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is not inspired, but it's cheerful and hard-working and sometimes funny, and--here's the important thing--it's not mean.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Exceptionally funny, unexpectedly tender, and lewder than a teenage boy's dreams.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Alternately sweet and raucous comedy.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Distinct from others of its lowly stripe because of the credibly real-feeling performances by much of its youthful ensemble.

Chicago Tribune Marc Caro

Both funny and foul, alternately frank and full of it.

TNT RoughCut M. Meghan McCarthy

What is refreshing about this film is that most of the characters seem like real people.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Cheesy homage to a level of horniness Austin Powers could only imagine will be a dream movie for many a teenage boy.

Newsweek Jeff Giles

A surprisingly earnest and cautionary movie, careful to attract female viewers and not freak parents out too badly.

LA Weekly John Patterson

The movie lover in you will recoil; your inner sophomore will rejoice.

Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams

I'd appreciate toilet humor more if it weren't so often so unimaginative.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

A limp excuse for a coming-of-age flick, more interested in sexploits than sex, more adept at gross-out than girls.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A go-for-the-lowest-common-denominator grab bag of raunchy sex gags and freakish outbursts. The cool thing is that it works.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Another giggly gross-out comedy for teenagers.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The story was primitive, the characters unmemorable, the direction unsophisticated, the writing cliched, the photography and music drab, the pacing uneven, the acting varying from adroitly funny to exaggerated.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Among this year's bumper crop of shallow teen-age movies, it is the shallowest and the most prurient.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Returns the teen movie to the uncomplicated glory days of "Porky's" and "Losin' It."

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

An uninteresting take on a tired formula that is only occasionally funny and usually pretty gross.

Film.com Robert Horton

The fact that isolated bits are amusing shouldn't keep us from strongly noting that this movie really is pretty awful -- not at all worthy of guilty pleasure status.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

What really makes the film fall dead (although the preview audience I saw it with howled from beginning to end) are the actors and the way the characters have been scripted.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Idiotic.

Boston Globe Jim Sullivan

Gross and tasteless...this high-school romp mixes the gross and tasteless with sentimental mush.