Before anyone actually had an opportunity to see it, the participants and the publicity machine tried to convince us that this was the funniest slice of pie yet. They were either lying or self-deluded. What is now an alleged rites-of-passage trilogy began as a cleverly disarming combination of outrageous gross-out comedy and believable characters. With dispiriting predictability, it has devolved into this - a series of scatalogical skits loosely connected in a stale Meet The Parents/Father Of The Bride (only here it's the groom) affair. The sole surprise is that the wedding itself is rather sweet, swapping a few 'eeeewwws' for 'aaaawwws', a thing that has made the American Pies a tad more endearing than, say, the Porky's oeuvre. Of course if you just like people with their pants around their ankles, you won't be disappointed either.
Half the original cast haven't been invited to the wedding, which is fine since someone in that town would have had to grow up. Biggs' agreeable Jim is now less a victim of his hormones than he is of Scott's ageing vulgarian Stifler, whose retarded atrocities this time include an unoriginal dog poop sequence and sex with Jim's geriatric granny. Jim's accidental humiliations include covering the wedding cake with his pubic hair and an inter-species foursome onto which his prospective in-laws obligingly stumble. High points - and we're stretching here - involve time-honoured bachelor party farce with strippers and a chocolate-coated Finch.
And much as we all love Jim's Dad, surely the brilliant comedic point of his existence was to be uncomfortable with his son's lurches into manhood. Now he's so enthusiastically involved, he even participates in the excruciating marriage proposal. Director Dylan, son of Bob, does a routine job, which is as much as can be expected with a script lacking in fresh gags.