American Pie Presents Beta House
With high school over, friends Erik Stifler and Cooze are off to college and where better than the same one where Erik's cousin Dwight goes. Having already experienced the fun of the Naked Mile, it makes sense for Erik and his friends to pledge to Dwight's fraternity Beta House. But whilst completing the list of outrageous tasks to become accepted they must help the fraternity beat their sworn enemies the Geek House.
It has to be said that after the first American Pie movies the series went a little down hill especially with it's first post Jim, Kevin and Finch movie "American Pie Presents Band Camp". But the fifth movie was actually surprisingly good fun and the same can be said for this sixth outing "American Pie Presents Beta House". What helps is that there is some continuity with the characters from part 5 returning for part 6 along with Eugene Levy who has entertained us in all the American Pie movies thus far as Mr. Levenstein.
As with all the other American Pie movies, "American Pie Presents Beta House" follows in the same manner with a mixture of teenage high jinx, sex gags and of course naked flesh and a couple of boundary pushing gross out moments. But what is missing this time round is the subtle message which all the other American Pie movies delivered, giving this one more free reign to just try and be as funny as possible without trying to wrap it up with some meaningful and less than important message about love.
As for the storyline to "American Pie Presents Beta House" well it's quite weak to be honest, you have a love interest for Erik, the initiation tests to get into Beta House and the ongoing rivalry between them and Geek House, ending up in a winner takes it all competition. But the weakness is not an issue as the whole purpose of "American Pie Presents Beta House" is to entertain with teenage humour, the sort of juvenile behaviour that split those who just want a laugh and those who want meaning in a movie. It is very much what you would expect from any American Pie movie, with a penchant for the lewd and obvious, but it's actually varied enough to make it not feel like one joke repeated through out the movie.
Performance wise well it is what it is a bunch of adequate performances from a bunch of young actors having fun in a college comedy. It's hard to really say that anyone character stands out as being amazing although thankfully all the characters and performances are an improvement on the 4th movie in the series. What can be said is the longer this series of movies has gone on the more pivotal the character of Mr. Levenstein has become and Eugene Levy is as funny as ever in the role, dishing out his awkward pearls of wisdom to his young friends.
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All in all "American Pie Presents Beta House" is actually not a bad movie. It's not as good as the original three but showed that the series still had potential even if it had brought in new characters and gone off on a tangent. The humour, storyline and performances are exactly what you expect from a teenage comedy full of juvenile gags, nudity and references to sex.
Hopefully with part 7 "American Pie Presents the Book of Love" now out in the UK and soon in the USA, it will manage to carry on the good form which was shown in Beta House.
