American Wedding puts the icing on the American Pie movies, but in this case you wouldn't want to have your cake and eat it, too.

After seeing the third flick in this gross-out series, you'll probably add chocolate brownies to the pastries you're least likely to eat when this randy gang is around.

What writer Adam Herz has made his characters eat and drink in the first two flicks pales in comparison to what someone is forced to consume in American Wedding, opening in local theatres today.

The same is true of the indignities he visits on body parts.

From American Wedding's opening to closing scenes, it's obvious Herz feels compelled to be more irreverent and crude this third time out and, for the most part, he succeeds.

American Wedding opens and closes with oral sex scenes in the most unlikely of settings. In between, its characters look for sex in likely as well as unlikely places.

Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), the wildly mismatched lovers from American Pie, fell in love in American Pie 2 and now have decided to get married.

They want a refined ceremony so they discreetly fail to invite Stifler (Seann William Scott), instead settling on Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) to be the best men. Michelle's younger sister Cadence (January Jones) will be the maid of honour.

Not only does Stifler crash the wedding but he vows to seduce Cadence, a rather reluctant virgin.

This may be Jim and Michelle's wedding, but it is clearly Stifler's movie and Scott is more than up to the challenge.

When the four buddies rush off to Chicago to find someone to design Michelle's wedding gown, Stifler finds himself in a gay bar where he ends up in a dance competition. He thinks he's the hero of Saturday Night Fever, though he's more like Disco Duck.

When he sees that Cadence is intrigued by Finch's cool intellectualism, Stifler immediately transforms himself into a preppy nerd.

In the first two American Pie movies, Scott proved he has oodles of charisma. This time he displays a precise comic timing that is beautifully calculated to get maximum laughs from each new situation.

He's subtle at being unsubtle.

Stifler is still loud, vulgar and gratingly sexist, but Scott manages to show he's a bit like the Grinch and has a heart somewhere in his chest.

Of necessity, Biggs and Hannigan have toned down their characters because they're now the most responsible of the old gang. Biggs makes Jim less naive, but he still manages to make him a bit of an emotional, sexual and physical klutz.

As Jim's dad, Eugene Levy remains the gem in these films. His attempts at serious conversations are hysterical because Jim's dad is like a deer permanently caught in the headlights.

As Michelle's pompous father, Fred Willard is an excellent addition to the mayhem.

American Wedding boasts a dynamite soundtrack that uses songs to comment on action and heighten laughs.

Calling American Wedding unabashedly and unashamedly crude, lewd and rude is to concede it achieves exactly what it set out to do.

Bring on American Baby, American Homestead, American High School Reunion or American Holiday.

This is one franchise that has far too much life left to put it to rest.

(This film is rated 14-A)

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