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FeedMovie Review: Little Fockers
Films opening Wednesday:
Little Fockers - Maple Ridge; Market Arcade; Transit, Elmwood, Galleria, Hollywood, Quaker Regals; Flix
True Grit - Maple Ridge; Market Arcade; Transit, Elmwood, Galleria, Hollywood, Quaker Regals; Flix
Films opening Saturday:
Gulliver's Travels - Transit, Elmwood, Galleria, Hollywood, Quaker Regals; Flix
The King's Speech - Eastern Hills Dipson; Amherst Dipson; Quaker Regals
Par for the course. Is that diplomatic enough? The statement could go both ways, but it's not headed in a good direction here. Meet the Parents was harmless enough and semi-worthwhile thanks to Stiller's squirming, De Niro's brooding, and Owen Wilson’s other-worldly transcendence. Meet the Fockers then took a marginal film, added two kooks in Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, and thought it’d do the same thing and have the same effect. Unfortunately, it stretched an already tiresome plot thinner to the point of over-kill and boredom. The next logical step then, of course, is to clone this shopworn schtick again and add even more characters in the aptly named Little Fockers.
There’s a bit of everything in the new menagerie with the tightly wound Jack—at this stage we're hoping that his heart attack scare becomes fatal—his composed-yet-trapped-free-spirit wife Dina (Blythe Danner), the sexual sparkplug of Streisand’s Roz, and Hoffman's Bernie, a man with a gutter sense of humor and no shame. We could have done without the second couple this go-round—in fact, Hoffman was originally left out of the mix but reshoots based on audience testing got him back in.
Where is there to go, though? We can’t have abusive parenting in family films. For the real meat, then, and cheap laughs, we’re given Jessica Alba’s Andi Garcia (yes, jokes are highly dependent on names here), a hot pharmaceutical rep peddling sexual performance drugs. (If the writers really wanted us to believe Greg would even fathom committing sin, they should have made her intelligent and at least comparable to Teri Polo’s consummate perfect wife.) She looks good in her underwear, so a point for that.
There’s also Laura Dern’s private school principal utilized for her cultish, "I drank the Kool-Aid" smile and sunny disposition, Harvey Keitel’s way too over-the-top contractor whose long hair, earrings, and touchy-feely attitude is his only purpose. After seeing him and De Niro onscreen together again, I hope they had a good cry after Paul Weitz yelled cut. Fart jokes and sexual snafus aside, the script descends even further to rely on corny wordplay like "The Godfocker" and "manopause."
There are some genuine laughs. The problem lies in the fact I can count them on one hand. Like its predecessors, Little Fockers shines in the end credits, with an outrageous and truly funny YouTube remix. And I’ll give the kiddos, Daisy Tahan and Colin Baiocchi, their due for being precocious and cute in all the right ways. The only other saving grace is the climactic fight between Jack and Greg—a heavyweight encounter we’ve been waiting a decade for. The moves are priceless, the facial expressions classic, and even a tired Jaws homage is on target, though it couldn't make me forget or forgive the previous hour and a half. The world has seen enough of the Fockers. At least, I have.
Little Fockers 3/10
photography:
[1] Grandpa Jack (ROBERT DE NIRO) and Samantha Focker (DAISY TAHAN) have a heart-to-heart talk in the third installment of the blockbuster series--"Little Fockers". Photo Credit: Glen Wilson © 2010 Universal Studios & DW Studios LLC
[2] Pam (TERI POLO) and Greg Focker (BEN STILLER) in the third installment of the blockbuster series--"Little Fockers". Photo Credit: Glen Wilson © 2010 Universal Studios & DW Studios LLC
