Film Intel's Fight Club - American Pie vs Road Trip

For the next round of the Fight Club we've taken 1999's teen comedy American Pie and 2000's very-similar-but-a-little-bit-different Road Trip and butted their macho egos together to find out who would emerge victorious. The result was much reminiscing about miss-spent youth and watching both of these far too many times than is naturally healthy. Full details of the battle, and eventual winner, feature below.

First Google Image Result (above)

Although both kind of feature the film in question, both are also pretty woeful starts. AP should probably lose on the technicality that it produces a result more aligned to the film's sequel but by virtue of featuring Tom Green prominently, RT takes the loss.

AP: 4/10
RT: 3/10

Best Piece Of Parental Guidance On IMDb

Both films should really be goldmines for the various worries of concerned parents but AP can do no better than describing a famous scene ('a boy is caught with his penis in a tube sock'). RT proves slightly more fruitful by virtue of someone detailing that 'women are seen topless and rub each others breasts (frontal and side nudity)' because, obviously, one or other of 'frontal' or 'side' is much worse than the alternative.

AP: 4/10
RT: 7/10

Best Character Name

AP has lots to choose from (MILF Guy #1 and MILF Guy #2 were particularly strong contenders) but the winner has to be Chuck Sherman who's nickname The Sherminator birthed a thousand rubbish catchphrases and impersonators. It's a similar story in RT which has director Todd Phillips as the magnificent Foot Lover On Bus and Horatio Sanz' unforgettable French Toast Guy. Surprisingly though, Tom Green proves he's useful for something, taking the win for RT by virtue of being called Barry Manilow.

AP: 5/10
RT: 8/10

Best Quote

AP must be the standout here with both Stifler (Seann William Scott) and Jim's Dad (Eugene Levy) spouting constantly well-written one liners. Jim's Dad's best is probably his description of condoms as being 'safer than a tube sock' whilst Stifler's constant put downs ('I'll see you guys tonight, in the "No Fucking Section", right?') are frequently laugh-worthy. Sherman makes a late grab for it though, describing himself as 'a sophisticated sex robot, sent back in time to change the future for one lucky lady'. Scott is also a walking quote machine in RT and his sage relationship advice ('you're already cheating! Anytime you pass up sex, you're cheating on yourself') coupled with Barry's cries of 'unleash the fury!' form a strong counter-argument to AP's win.

AP: 8/10
RT: 7/10

Best Comparison

An interesting one for AP which DVD Active called 'like a breath of fresh air compared to the recent high school based comedies' which is strange to consider now, twelve years on from its release and with a host of imitators peppering the bargain bins of the country. RT is the clear winner here though with Metro Active calling it 'like Homer's Odyssey, but with fart jokes'. Right, so, nothing like Homer's Odyssey then?

AP: 5/10
RT: 9/10

Best Tweet

Arguable whether this, like its picture, should be disqualified for not quite talking about the film in question but @riskyveryrisky asking 'is there any ball shaver as seen on american pie: the wedding?' did raise a brief chortle. Perhaps their twitter name should be 'risqueveryrisque' instead. There were plenty of people going on road trips but sadly none with anything very interesting to say about either the film or their journey.

AP: 5/10
RT: 0/10

Best Rotten Tomatoes Review

RT's is a joint award to two reviewers with opposing opinions on (who else?) Tom Green. Karla Peterson reckoned that he was the best thing in the film as 'a mouse-gobbling psycho' whilst Robert Wilonsky thought that Green's scenes looked 'as though they were shot during post-production'. So much for critical consensus. AP meanwhile has Steve Tilley declaring that 'anyone who has been there, done that won't be able to help but have twinges of real feeling for the fresh-faced lads' because obviously there's a lot of people out there who have had sexual relations with an apple pie.

AP: 6/10
RT: 6/10

Best Piece Of IMDb Trivia

The fact that AP's script originally carried the title Untitled Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made For Under $10 Million That Most Readers Will Probably Hate But I Think You Will Love is fairly common knowledge but still rather amusing none-the-less. RT's best is the reveal of the Todd Phillips cameo.

AP: 6/10
RT: 3/10

With 43/80 each, there's no separating the teen comedies, two above-average showings which never threatened to usurp current title-holder It's A Wonderful Life.

Film Intel's Fight Club: where two films get pushed head-to-head over such irreverent issues as 'first Google image result' and 'best IMDb parental guidance entry'. All films are marked out of ten on each topic with a possible maximum score of 80 - it won't tell you anything about the quality of the film (or will it?) but it might give you a few giggles. Or it might not. We'll see.