American Pie’s female-fronted reboot called ‘cringe’ and ‘flavourless’ in first reviews

American Pie’s female-fronted reboot has been called “cringe” and “flavourless” in its first reviews.

American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules serves as the eighth sequel to the iconic 1999 teen sex comedy, and the first to solely revolve around female characters.

Rehashing the first film’s plot from a female perspective, the film sees four high school students plot to lose their virginities before graduation.

Unlike the original film, however, Girls’ Rules has so far earned poor reviews from critics. The New York Times condemned the sequel for featuring “none of the mischievous pleasure” of its predecessors.

“What’s surprising is how quaint and wholesome the entire arrangement is,” writes critic Teo Bugbee. “These girls are ultimately looking for nice boys to join them for consensual and emotionally rewarding sex … The original American Pie was tasteless; this version is flavourless.”

Others have criticised the fact that the film was written entirely by men, and unsuccessfully attempts to emulate the success of the 2019 teen comedy Booksmart.

“Aside from the cringe sexual humour that absolutely fails to understand why something like Booksmart was brilliant, the narrative takes a nosedive,” writes Robert Kodjer for Flickering Myth.

“This is a group of people that got together deciding to make another American Pie movie while cashing in on any nostalgic idea they could think of, and who probably recently saw Booksmart deciding to use it as homework to poorly copy,” Kodjer adds.

The Sioux City Journal also described the film as “half-baked”. “This was written by people who haven’t a clue about today’s youth – or their means of communication,” writes critic Bruce Miller.

Girls’ Rules marks the eighth official sequel to the original 1999 film, three of which featured the original American Pie cast, which includes Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan and Seann William Scott.

American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules is out now on disc and digital rental, and will arrive on Netflix UK at a later date.

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