A pretty accurate content warning on Netflix for the latest American Pie movie: “Pervasive strong /crude sexual content, language throughout, alcohol and some drug use – all involving teens”. Yeah, that’s about right for the new movie American Pie: Girls’ Rules.

I haven’t seen all the American Pie movies… looks like I’ve missed three of them. Given how much I like the series in general, I might not have actually missed them… not really. But my expectations were beat in this one. Girls’ Rules is a reasonably charming, occasionally funny little teen sex romp. And it IS quite raunchy and very open about sex… lots of it.

Plot: Four high school girls make a pact to find either romance or hard core sex, depending on each of their needs. Enter the cute new guy in town who becomes the focus of their individual pacts. Pretty basic plot… and I’m debating if it’s transgressive or modern since the original American Pie was credited for focusing on the girls as well (which was fairly unique for a raunchy teen comedy at the time).

Either way, this film pretty much has the same awkward, embarrassing, squirmy comedy, at least early on. And a Stiffler (a Stephanie Stiffler this time). As the movie progresses, it settles down into a more traditional teen comedy (though with more sex than average). I laughed a few times but mainly I kind of got charmed by the four young ladies. They all have quite a bit of charisma and their stories slowly (and I mean slowly) started to grow on me.

It’s hardly a great film but it’s a bit better than I expected from the 9th film in a series that went direct to video/streaming. It’s possible, but unlikely, it’d have gotten a theatrical release if there wasn’t a pandemic. If you aren’t prudish and liable to tsk tsk at the vast quantities of (mostly clothed) sex the young ladies are having (and instigating), this might be worth a look.

Score: 72