"Oh come on, you MUST have heard of American Pie? Surely everyone in the world has laughed their <insert anatomical expression here> off". Now given the furore surrounding the release of the aforementioned 'American Pie' you'd perhaps expect a film fanatic like my good self to have skipped merrily to the DVD emporium and picked up a copy as quickly as possible - wrong. But why the apathy Neilston? Surely you'd be insane NOT to spend your hard earned pennies on what many people seem to consider to be the finest comedy the world has ever seen? Well, perhaps - but we'll reserve judgement for now...

With high school graduation imminent, Jim and his three friends make a pact to all lose their virginity before the upcoming prom night. Agreeing to help each other make this leap from boy to man, the four set about identifying their potential 'victims' while discovering the weird and wonderful world of...oh I can't say it...s-e-x. But is this exactly what they want? Is the beast with two backs the be all and end all or is there more to life than naked girls and getting your rocks off?

Ok so American Pie (AP hereafter) is a 'teen' movie and as such it could fall into the same trap as all those hideous 50's 'teen' movies where all girls wore fluffy sweaters and were wholesome and all blokes were either jocks or nerds. In fact that's pretty much how blokes have always been portrayed in 'teen' movies and AP is little different. A world away from the wholesome 50's, AP is seemingly concerned with just one thing: sex. However there's a lot more to it than just this but for it's intended audience it aims for the lowest denominator.

As I said, AP is more than just a sex comedy. If it wasn't we'd be heading into Confessions Of a... territory and that's something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy (well actually I would but then again he's a particularly nasty person). AP is in actuality a coming of age tale and at that it's not bad. Ok so it has to wrap the whole thing up in a blanket of sex and gross out comedy but at it's core it's nothing that we haven't seen before.

Having to wrap itself in this shroud of 'acceptability' AP desperately tries to appeal to it's teen audience while trying to sneak the morality side of things past them, and, given the reviews and mass adulation, it manages it. Which is a good thing really as if AP relied solely on it's humour, the film would undoubtedly be weak. I'll be honest it's not the worst comedy that I've ever seen but in the same breath it's not the greatest comedy to ever grace the silver screen. Taking it's lead from the likes of Kingpin, AP goes for gross-out humour and tries to use the sick side of life. Hey, I have no problem with that and in fact the film's title comes pretty much from one of the more 'infamous' gags. But it's not great comedy though and it's not really used well. It's a smokescreen and a ruse but it's not a barrel of laughs. Yes some will say that I must be made of stone for not splitting my sides but it's the old subjective comedy tack coming into play and while some may find AP's, how can I put this, 'direct' approach hilarious, others will find it offensive. I found it neither hilarious or offensive but the best it could manage was the odd grin. A worthy achievement but hardly cause for celebration.

With the comedy diverting the attention of 90% of the audience, what does the rest of the film have to offer? As I've said, this is a coming of age tale and if you can ignore the idiots braying like donkeys, it's not bad at being that. Yes it may be a rehash of the old realisation that sex is pretty much meaningless in the face of true lurrrrrvvvv, but it does do that well. Jim and his buds allow us to go through pretty much the same journey that most adolescent males go through and it allows us to relive the awkwardness, the embarrassment, and the feelings of inadequacies that 16 year olds up and down the land are experiencing right now. All I can say is, thank God that's behind me.

AP is naturally very much a character driven piece and the characters on display here are actually not bad. They all have their moments and we come to know them all - good and bad. Ok so they don't rank alongside the greatest cinematic characters of all time but they are characters that we can identify - who hasn't squirmed mightily while their Dad tries to explain about girls? We've been there before and that's pretty much exactly how it happens (although I can state for the record that my 'old man' never became Santa and offered 'adult material' - well, not in my direction anyway).

Unknown Jason Biggs takes the lead of Jim and despite having a face that just deserves several good smacks, he's not too bad. He makes Jim just the the right side of nerdy while trying to aim for the vaulted heights of 'jock'. It's a solid performance but not quite from the same mould as the ultimate: Feris Bueller. In fact the cast are pretty much uniformly decent as a whole and there's no-one that I really want to dwell on, with one exception. Eugene Levy is outstanding in the small but crucial role of Jim's dad. Levy is excellent as the father desperately trying to appear 'understanding' but who is in fact mind-blowingly embarrassing. It's such a spot on performance and character that you can't help but be impressed...or laugh.

AP is not the masterpiece that many would have us believe and indeed outside of it's intended audience it will have something of a limited appeal...as a comedy. The morality tale underneath it all is well handled and here the film scores big. It manages to dispel some urban myths and offer the odd bit of advice (but never comes across a being 'preachy') but never feels heavy or like a public information documentary. That's not an easy task to achieve and here AP does a good job.

The teen market may lap up this kind of stuff but for the rest of us there are better films. Stand By Me is a better coming of age piece but lacks the charms (e.g. apple pies and breasts) that AP has to offer. It's not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination but does (or rather 'did') it deserve all of the acclaim and applause that it received?

As a late 20-something, AP had been over-hyped to the point where I was never going to like it, but it wasn't the disaster I expected. Yes it's not a barn storming film that will have me rushing out to the shops and, truth be told, I'll more likely than not, not bother watching it ever again, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. Some will find it hilarious and denounce me as the devil (religious types mostly) and some will find it deeply offensive and off-putting (again, religious types mostly) but it does serve a purpose and it does get it's message across. Whether that message is understood though is a question for another day. So off to bed Skipper and Jeannie and we'll have another adventure tomorrow. Oh hang on, I seem to have become some sort of 'teen' movie from 1958...