Fornicating a pie is god-tier filmmaking. Once you reach that echelon, it’s impossible to live up to the standard created. Yet, director J.B. Rogers pulled off—pardon the pun—the impossible, taking a franchise from promising to genius incarnate in American Pie 2. This wasn’t a cheap sequel trying to piggyback off the success of the original. No, it took everything it learnt from before and improved, cementing itself as the Terminator 2 of teen comedies.
You see, much like the first Terminator film, American Pie struggled to pinpoint the actual star of the franchise. At first the audience believed it to be Jim Levenstein, aka Sweeny Glop, the jackhammering destroyer of pies. Like Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese, however, he was merely the decoy for the real McCoy, the actual star of the show: Steve Stifler, aka the Stifmeister.
In American Pie 2, Stifler is finally accepted as the true protagonist of the story. Not only does he command the screen with his mesmerising presence and arsenal of inappropriate jokes, but he’s also responsible for saving the decaying friendships around him. Armed with the weapon in his shorts and all the ammo from Digital Playground’s VHS library, he becomes the T-800 of the series—sworn to change the course of the future.
True, he might’ve started out as a villain in the previous film, but there’s no denying that he’s the undisputed hero here.
More importantly, Stifler is also a protector, specifically of his younger brother, Matt—the John Connor of this tale. It’s the elder Stifler’s responsibility to protect his sibling and prevent him from becoming a loser like everyone else in their dreadful town. It’s a noble cause that sees him taking Matt under his wing and becoming his mentor.
In fact, when the evil Finch suspects that he’ll get another round with Stifler’s Mom, the Stifmeister does everything possible to shield Matt from the thought of it—like a guardian angel.
Interestingly, American Pie 2 features another “Terminator” as well—let’s call him the T-1000 here—The Sherminator. The T-1000 was able to change his shape into a liquid form and appear in places you wouldn’t expect him. In much the same way, Chris Owens’ Sherman appeared at parties he wasn’t invited to. In the sequel, he’s even able to find out where an out-of-town event is taking place. How is he privy to these details?
If you think about it, The Sherminator is the likely villain of the story, too. The reason is simple: Most parties were shut down when he didn’t get lucky with the ladies. However, this specific one didn’t suffer the same fate because Sherman hooked up with Nadia.
In all likelihood, he’s probably been the rat that’s been hiding in plain sight.
There is one area where American Pie 2 and Terminator 2 differ, though: the music. While Judgment Day relied on the same repetitive notes of Brad Fiedel’s Terminator score, American Pie 2 embraced a multitude of legendary musical artists to heighten the atmosphere. Featuring the unmistakable bops of American Hi-Fi, New Found Glory, Alien Ant Farm, Michelle Branch and The Offspring, this is a soundtrack that captures the greatest musical artists of all time. Only Nickelback was missing to make it sheer perfection.
When you think about it, it’s an absolute sham that Film Twitter isn’t fighting about the merits of American Pie 2 on a daily basis. It’s been 20 years since this classic movie touched our lives, and it’s yet to have encountered a worthy contender.
Best part? It didn’t even need pie fornication to prove its point. Incredible.
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Tell us, do you agree? Is American Pie 2 the Terminator 2 of teen comedies? Let us know in the comments.
