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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 9.17%
Worth A Look: 25.69%
Average: 33.94%
Pretty Bad: 11.01%
Total Crap: 20.18%
7 reviews, 67 user ratings
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| Meet the Fockers |
by Erik Childress
"You Can Relax Now. It's Actually Pretty Funny."
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Even with characters like Lemony Snicket, Howard Hughes, the 11 Ocean gang and Natalie Portman in a thong, the most questions I’ve been getting the last two months are about the Fockers. Have you seen them? What are they like? Are they nice to their mothers? Every conceivable question has been asked and it’s clear that audiences truly loved the original film/remake and are ready for seconds. I loved it too but was skeptical about a retread and disappointed when Al Pacino wasn’t selected to play Mr. Focker. It’s with joy and a bit of relief, especially after deflating the balloon on expectations for Ocean’s Twelve, that Meet The Fockers is a fine sequel; not surpassing the original, but clearly putting forth more of an effort than most follow-ups do into the script department.The whole gang is back in the Meet the Parents sequel, right down to the director (Jay Roach) and screenwriters. They do a nice job with our association with the original by cleverly fashioning an opening series of events that re-introduces our hero’s unfortunate name, plays against his rampant string of bad luck and even a meeting with an old rival on the airplane on the way back to the house of Byrnes. Greg (Ben Stiller) and Pam (Teri Polo) desperately want to set their wedding date, but not before Jack (Robert DeNiro) and Dina (Blythe Danner) get to meet the other side of the family.
Jack takes a variation on the About Schmidt camper by bulletproofing it and other trinkets ideal for cross-country traveling the Byrnes way. With their sign-language entailed grandson along for the ride, the family hauls it down to Florida where Bernie and Roz Focker (Dustin Hoffman & Barbra Streisand) await. The Fockers are almost required to be the Byrnes’ doppelgangers. Where Jack is uptight, Bernie is an ex-hippie who is all about sharing. As Dina is only intimately handled on anniversaries, Roz is a sex therapist for the twilight years.
Needless to say things aren’t going to go smoothly. There’s a disastrous dinner, secrets Greg isn’t up to revealing and another CIA-sponsored investigation by Jack. These are obvious retreads from the first film, but I give a lot of credit to screenwriters John Hamburg and James Herzfeld for not making them feel like old ideas. They fit right into the new adversities established for poor Greg creating some nice character moments for the actors. Bernie and Greg clearly have had trouble connecting as father-and-son. Dina looks at Jack with regret for the time and attention he seems to share with everyone else but her. Roz isn’t just a wacky, overbearing mother but someone who shares a genuine love and desire to bring happiness to others. The dynamic between the Byrnes and the Fockers isn’t just a superficial cloak for madcap shenanigans. It takes time to explore their eccentricities and ask questions of what is behind them.
It’s a bit trying at first for DeNiro and Stiller to reprise these characters; last played by Bobby at the height of his comic powers before films like Showtime and Godsend. Stiller, in his sixth film released just this year, has almost been playing a variation of Greg Focker from Duplex to Along Came Polly since, so its thankful that they both had a little help to ease back into their shoes. And the large majority of it comes from another inspired comic performance by Dustin Hoffman. He’s gone face-to-chest with DeNiro before in the brilliant Wag the Dog and its fun to watch him let loose with just an unabashed silliness. Hoffman’s like a kid in the comedy store here and he plays wonderfully off the equally game Streisand, particularly when it comes to their hilarious sex talks. Still, DeNiro furrows his brow with the best of them and no one delivers truth-filled speeches like Stiller.Fockers stumbles through its third act, miscalculating immediately with a turn from Tim Blake Nelson as an overzealous cop intent on precipitating the obligatory confrontation between Greg and the two fathers. It’s merely forced writing, but why not just use Reno 911’s Cedric Yarbrough who gets two lines as the prison guard and wasted? But that’s only the last half-hour. Two-thirds of the film contains the good, solid laughs you came to expect with some nice twists to help keep it from bring no different than starting over the original DVD.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11362&reviewer=198
originally posted: 12/22/04 16:20:09
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USA
22-Dec-2004 (PG-13)
DVD: 19-Apr-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
26-Dec-2004
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