It’s not really a very good show or a very funny one, though it’s not bad for most of the time, and it has at l;east one thing going for it: (Or four or five actually.) Reunion’s writer-directors — Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, scripters (and occasional directors) of the Harold and Kumar movies — seem to like these Adam Herz characters and to feel some sense of responsibility to them, and to the fact that they’ve grown older if not less ridiculous. That doesn’t mean that the five avoid doing the same damn dopey things, and getting into the same inane predicaments this time around. But at least they express a kind of remorse., or a vague self-awareness. (Everyone but Stifler, of course.) And the movie tries, not very successfully, to give them more credibility.

Anyway, there are two great characters in this movie, played by two actors who, I’m convinced, are the main reasons for the series’ success: Levy as Jim’s appallingly pseudo-hip and likably corny Dad, and Scott as the Stiffmeister, horndog in excelsis.

These two are as good — or bad — as ever. Here, Reunion takes Mr. Levensheim to a wild party. and pairs him up (memorably, under the credits) with Stifler’s legendary Mom (Jennifer Coolidge), who has grown up even more erratically than her son.

As for Stifler — well, anyone who went though high school and/or college during one Sexual Revolution or another, and kept their eyes open, probably knows what a well-observed, hilarious, only a bit exaggerated character Stifler is, what a classic party animal generllismo, The other four of these East Great Falls High chummos are affable but fairly typical movie guys, waiting for their Hangover. Biggs plays (well) an amiable neurotic, Klein a leaden jock, Nicholas a glib little guy, and Thomas an over-imaginative tale-teller and fantasist. (Finch claims to have translated ‘War and Peace’ into Latin, for fun.) We can recognize things we know in all of them, a little.

But everything about Stifler rings either true or funny — from his omnipresent wild-ass grin, always somewhere on his face even if its lurking behind his ears, to his congenital madman squint, to his maddeningly no-brakes behavior and his flair for colossal screw-ups. The problem with Stifler, for some critics, may be that they feel compelled to express disapproval of The Stiffmeister’s pathological antics (as if the younger generation might watch Stifler taking a dump in the movie’s bad-ass beach bullies’ beer cooler, and be driven to emulate him).

The point about Stifler is that, even though his work life is show here as a failure (he’s a corporate temp with delusions of grandeur), he‘s also the crazy-swinging comic engine behind the whole movie, the daffily good-natured, insanely uninhibited erotomaniac who makes things happen and has no shame. I knew some Stiflers. So did some of you. Scott nails them all. Or most of them, anyway.

Just the reintroduction of Jim‘s pop and The Stiffmeister alone is enough to raise a little indecent nostalgia in this movie. Or bonhomie, maybe. Not enough to make it a good movie, but at least enough to avoid it being an irredeemably bad one. Be forewarned. Unless you like this kind of movie, you won‘t …But then again, Stifler’s back. Somebody‘s singing “Louie Louie” with the original lyrics. (Mr. Leversheim maybe. Or an I only imagining it?) So the party must be going on somewhere. Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie/ Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry...