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American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile
The American Pie series' first straight-to-video effort, 2005's Band Camp, surprisingly rejuvenated the teen sex franchise, rescuing the legacy of the original 1999 hit comedy from the miserable impotency of its two limp theatrical sequels. Band Camp's smartest move was ditching the original trilogy's aging and increasingly charmless main characters in favor of focusing on the exploits of the bawdy Stifler clan, with the excellent Tad Hilgenbrink leading the juvenile hijinks. Like Band Camp, The Naked Mile tracks yet another Stifler, cousin Erik, and while star John White doesn't possess the commanding charisma that so elevated the previous film, this new entry is at least pleasing, and more than makes good on the promise of its sexploitative title. Erik is the white sheep of the family, but not by his own design. Bucking the male Stifler tradition of boinking his way through high school, senior Erik is embarrassingly still a virgin — because his long-term girlfriend Tracy (Jessy Schram) isn't ready to consummate. When she finally relents, the couple's aborted attempt to get it on is so humiliating that Tracy offers her boyfriend the chance to relieve his frustration with a "guilt-free pass" to do whatever he wants with whomever while on a weekend visit to a local university with his oversexed friends Cooze (Jake Siegel) and Trent (Jon Cor). It just so happens that this same weekend, the hard partying student body is indulging in its own bacchanalian tradition: a full frontal marathon known as "The Naked Mile." It won't take the brain power of a spider monkey for most viewers to anticipate most of the formulaic plot, but those stern enough to wade through the initial cascade of seminal, fecal, urinary, and vomitorious gross-out gags may find themselves not only laughing more than they expected, but also rediscovering some of the rowdy coming-of-age charms that made the first American Pie movie such a breakout success. Director Joe Nussbaum (of the hit internet short George Lucas in Love) and first-time screenwriter Erik Lindsay may not achieve any new breakthroughs in sophisticated sex comedy, but they sure know how to get the most out of angry dwarves, which should be enough to satisfy most anyone inclined to watch this in the first place. Also with Christopher Macdonald, Steve Talley, Candace Kroslak, Angel Lewis, and a brief appearance by Eugene Levy. Universal's American Pie presents the Naked Mile is presented in a good anamorphic transfer (1.85:1) with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. The feature is accompanied by a commentary from Nussbaum and others, plus the featurettes "Little People, Big Stunts," "Life on The Naked Mile," "Yoga Guide for Getting Girls," and the male ass-waxing doc "The Bare Essentials," plus outtakes and deleted and extended scenes. Keep-case.
—Gregory P. Dorr
