Blu-Ray Review: ‘American Pie Presents: The Book of Love’ Almost Entirely Free of Laughs

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CHICAGO – We’ve gone from apple pie to PB-and-J. No, I’m not kidding. The opening scene of “American Pie Presents: The Book of Love” features a character turning away from internet porn so he can bang his lunch. When his dog ‘joins in,’ he doesn’t stop him. Laughing yet? If you thought this straight-to-DVD franchise had hit the bottom of the barrel before, it turns out they’ve found another barrel below the false floor and it’s filled to the brim with horrible comedy.

Blu-Ray Rating: 1.0/5.0

I know what you’re saying: why bother reviewing a straight-to-BD raunchy comedy? Because there are people out there who may have fond memories of the original franchise, be enticed by the presence of the super-talented Eugene Levy, or just have a gift card from Santa burning a hole in their pocket and spend it on this mess, a movie that not only disgraces the name of the theatrical “Pie” films but the cheapie straight-to-DVD ones released to date.

American Pie Presents: The Book of Love was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 22nd, 2009
Photo credit: Universal Home Video

The plot of “Book of Love” centers, of course, on three guys trying to get laid with the girls of their dreams. There’s the nice guy who always gets caught in the awkward situations, the slightly slow guy whose girl wants to wait, and the dorky guy who dreams of banging the hottest girl in school. Of course, there’s also the Stifler character (played absolutely horrendously in this version) and Eugene Levy pops up in the final act (he’s on the cover but be warned that it’s over an hour before he appears).

It’s all merely a skeleton on which to hang as many gross-out jokes as possible with the occasional flash of t & a. I’m down with a stupid, raunchy comedy every now and then and was looking forward to something to deflate the pretension of a pretty lackluster awards season of movies but there’s not one single laugh in “Book of Love”. Zero. It’s just not funny.

With an “American Pie Presents” film hitting the home market every year, it feels like the production of these movies have stopped worrying about actually writing jokes, characters, or plot and merely focus on the gross. What’s more disturbing? A scene where an elderly hooker dies while performing oral sex and gets stuck on the appendage or a scene where a moose sodomizes a character? Rent “Book of Love” and decide for yourself.

“American Pie Presents: The Book of Love” is presented in 1080p High-Definition Widescreen with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and accompanied by an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The special features include “On the Set of American Pie Presents: The Book of Love,” “Just the Tips: The Love Manual,” American Pie Trivia, American Pie-Cons, Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel, and “From the Set”.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com