American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules Review

A quiet under the radar Netflix release as we bring you our American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules Review.

It’s Senior year at East Great Falls. Annie, Kayla, Michelle, and Stephanie decide to harness their girl power and band together to get what they want their last year of high school.

A girls twist on the classic American Pie movies and you expect to hop into a movie about female empowerment, independent women enjoying life and indulging in their naughty antics but at the heart be a wholesome movie of friendship and growing up.

Wrong.

Sadly American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules ditches all of the above for cheap laughs and seen-it-before comedy that has the audacity to copy old American Pie scenes as it feels as though they’ve just completely run out of ideas.

I mean the introduction of the movie involves a certain pie and whilst the introduction of any American Pie movie is meant to push the crude boundaries for comedy this one falls flat on its face and most of the rest of the film does too.

Whilst there isn’t much to hold dear in terms of re-watchability factor within this film we do get a new addition to the Stifler family, Stephanie.

Stephanie Stifler for 90% of the movie acts like a tom-boy, speaks like a dude throughout the film and then at the end completely flips from dom to sub and succumbs to a male infatuation.

Sadly character development and film structure throughout is very wishy washy which is strange as David H. Sternberg who wrote this movie also created the story for American Pie 2.

The originals worked so well as each character had an endearing quality and a quality that the audience could somehow relate to (especially targeted towards a male audience) but this time around I can’t see any relation or any selling point for these girls to even remotely invest in.

One has alone time thinking of dead presidents.

Another cheats on her boyfriend and jumps into bed with someone after 5 minutes of knowing them.

Another is borderline stalker and has serious insecurities and Stephanie is just a man-chasing tom boy who’s character feels solely based on watching Stifler clips on YouTube and formulating a female character similar.

Definitely 4 girls to provide inspiration to all those who watch it. Not.

In terms of the casting, I thought the girls certainly looked the part but the material they had to work with was so poorly done.

Out of all the character arcs (I use that word lightly) it’s Stephanie Stifler that comes out on top for me as she has this feminist independence and towards the end redeems herself and keeps this fierce but fiery side whilst also embracing a softer side. 

A trait that all Stifler’s had throughout the movies using brash obnoxious lines to hide a softer side underneath.

A strange Danny Trejo cameo adds more questions than it answers but don’t get me wrong, I did chuckle at times.

I have that 90’s teen movie humour and I always have and even the goofiest scenes garnered a chuckle but this movie is bad.

It’s certainly a film where you disengage your brain, sit down with a few beers and your other half and enjoy a goofy comedy without dissecting it too much.

The girls all decide to make a pact that after 4 weeks they should all find their perfect guy and then all end up all liking the same guy.

Chaos ensue and Grant (Darren Barnet) finds himself chased after by four sex-driven women.

Throughout this chasing each girl encounters other guys who are much better suitors and by the end of the movie all ends as it should.

American Pie Presents Girls’ Rules calms down as it draws its conclusion and ends on a much more mature note but it’s too little, too late.

Sadly it’s a comedy written by men and it shows. It really shows.

Change the writers, get a new idea and add in some old cast members to link everyone full circle and we may have something but as it is…

Well…

It’s not good.