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American Wedding

EMAILPRINTUniversal Pictures

American Wedding reviews
43
7.6 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 40 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Romance

Written by: Adam Herz (also characters)

Directed by: Jesse Dylan

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 1, 2003
DVD: January 2, 2004

Running Time: 102 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for sexual content, language and crude humor

Starring Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Thomas Ian Nicholas, January Jones, Eugene Levy, and Molly Cheek

It was bound to happen, sooner or later. The raucous and lovable characters from the wildly successful American Pie series have gone and done it -- well they're planning on doing it. Really soon. In front of everyone they know. In a big way. Jim (Biggs) and Michelle (Hannigan) are getting married. (Universal Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80

Variety Robert Koehler

The funny stuff continues for a quite satisfying conclusion during the wedding prep and ceremonies, which Stifler single-handedly transforms into his own personal gross-out comedy masterpiece.

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80

Washington Post Desson Thomson

If you do not bring pride, good taste or sense to this third American Pie installment, you'll have a good time.

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80

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The movie is enormously, convulsively funny, and it never lets up -- it has no shame.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Ray Conlogue

Speaking personally, I wouldn't voluntarily go to this flick. But for those with a greater gross-out threshold, it's a better film than anyone should normally expect in this genre.

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75

Premiere Kelly Borgeson

So tasteless, so fiendishly puerile that it’s hilarious.

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75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Although the movie cheerfully offends all civilized notions of taste, decorum, manners and hygiene, it has a sweetness that is impossible to discount, and it is often very funny.

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70

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Combining raunchiness and sweetness in a slapdash but generally effective manner.

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67

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's often helplessly hilarious in its adolescent gross-out way, yet the cast periodically invests the film with sweetness.

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63

USA Today Mike Clark

Spotty and uneven, Wedding shouldn't even have the embarrassed guffaws it has, and it probably wouldn't were it not for a robust cast.

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63

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This isn't really a narrative: It's a collection of mostly unrelated scenes, about half of which pay off.

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63

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This movie is a vast improvement over the tired and uninspired "American Pie 2," although it fails to make it to the lofty perch occupied by the first film.

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60

Film Threat David Grove

Works because it pays tribute to these characters. I knew that American Wedding couldn’t be as funny as "American Pie 2" just as that film wasn’t as funny as "American Pie."

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60

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

The familiar formula feels significantly watered-down the third time around.

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60

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Is this sophisticated humor? No. But it is pretty entertaining.

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50

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

There's much more than a little Stifler here. Still, there's a recklessness to the character, as well as Scott's performance, that almost engenders respect; he's so determinedly unregenerate, so outrageously lewd, so unrelentingly grating, one almost looks forward to seeing just how far he'll go.

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50

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Screenwriter Adam Herz is calling this third installment the last, and not a moment too soon: his characters have grown up, but his gags are still trying to graduate from high school.

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50

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Its commendable, if juvenile, sense of erogenous adventure is sullied by bland technique, canned suburban punk music, and the fact that all the exploration does amount to maturer characters.

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50

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A gagfest that makes viewers gag at least twice as often as they giggle, American Wedding -- third in the American Pie trilogy -- whipsaws the audience between gross-out and guffaw.

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50

Portland Oregonian Roger Moore

Junk this is and ever was, but this is well-acted junk.

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50

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Against all odds, the American Pie movies have actually gotten a little better each time out, though that's certainly not to say that they're, uhhh, "masterpieces."

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50

Village Voice David Ng

The deliriously overacting Scott is game for anything, too much really, but as a one-man army against the tide of Z100-scored banality, he's the closest thing the movie has to a savior.

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50

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Some gut-busting moments, but for the most part the thrill is gone.

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50

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

There are a couple of surprises in the I-can't-believe-they're-doing-this vein, but mostly, "Pie 3" is an aimless charade of doggy poo, latex breasts and really, really bad language.

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50

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Best of all, though, is Seann William Scott as the profoundly annoying, profoundly vulgar Stifler.

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40

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Suffers from a lack of good gags. That’s not to say there aren’t scads of chuckles scattered throughout – Dylan and his cast are nothing if not gluttons for the fast and cheap yuk (not to mention yuck) – but the howls of laughter that arose from Paul and Chris Weitz’s original slice of Pie just aren’t there.

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38

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The crass sentimentality of American Wedding increasingly fits Norman Mailer's definition: "the emotional promiscuity of the basically unemotional." The jokes are unemotional, uncouth and mostly unfunny.

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30

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Scott's energy helps keep the movie going during its sluggish moments and animates its few bright spots, including a pleasurably dumb showdown on the dance floor of a gay bar.

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25

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Whatever novelty this series ever possessed has gone down the proverbial tube. The actors are on autopilot, and Adam Herz's screenplay panders to its immature target audience so cravenly and relentlessly that it verges on incompetence.

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25

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The strain and desperation are apparent from the first scene.

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25

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

This third hunk of Pie is a worn-out gross-out, a remnant of a genre that now seems so five minutes ago.

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16

Entertainment Weekly Bruce Fretts

The third helping of ''American Pie'' offers little more than crumbs. Half the franchise's core cast (including Mena Suvari, Chris Klein, and Tara Reid) chose to skip the big fat geek wedding.

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10

The New York Times A.O. Scott

You'll see better film on ponds.

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10

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A gross-out saga that sentient adults should avoid like the plague.

10

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

For sheer ineptitude, crassness and unwatchability, American Wedding takes the cake.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 40 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kasey S. gave it an8:
American Wedding is definitely a worthy addition to the American Pie series. One of those movies you can watch several times and still laugh.

Job A. gave it a9:
This movie had me laughing so hard that I could barely breath at times.Stiffler is the man in this movie! Hilarious!!

Samantha T gave it an8:
This movie was good but not as good as the second which was my favorte although i did love this movie because it seems to focus on stiffler more who is my favortie character, but it makes me mad that like non of the girls are in it and neither is Oz, but overall the movie was good.

Rebecca L. gave it a 9:
It was hilarious.

Jason D. gave it an 8:
A guilty pleasure but a pleasure. Some movies aren't meant to make you think- just enjoy. And this is one of them.

Andrew M. gave it a 7:
The series may have been fast running out of gas, but this is a genuine improvement over the very pedestrian 2nd instalment. Some very funny scenes permeate through a fairly limp plot but also serve to inculcate the young thespians to greater things...it really is a film that gains momentum as it goes, and that can be seen in the acting; Biggs and Thomas are perfectly comfortable with their characters; Scott, as opposed to his strained effort in 2, is the real shining light; and Levy again makes you simultaneously chuckle and shake your head. And on a final note, this film has to have the grossest gross-out scene ever....you know the one!!

N C gave it a 0:
A big let down.

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