Meet The Fockers film review

certificate_12A

MEET THE FOCKERS

The most surprising aspect of this sequel to the hugely successful Meet The Parents is not that it got made, but that it took four years to get made. It would be good to think the time had been spent honing the script and improving on the first film, but the evidence proves otherwise. Instead it's a laboured and lengthy rehash with many of the original gags being recycled and few fresh ones added. The most critical difference is the introduction of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Greg Focker (Ben Stiller)'s parents, thus providing the film with its oh so risqué title.

In the same way that De Niro is content to tarnish his legacy with such silly material, Hoffman clearly has no qualms about portraying the over-sexed libertarian Bernie Focker. Watching two such gifted actors hamming it up is funny and sad. Both are gifted comedians, and while Meet The Fockers has its share of laughs, watching them compete with a toilet-flushing cat is a little demeaning. The same might also be said of Streisand who oddly chose this film to make her acting return after an eight year absence.

Apart from Streisand and Hoffman, all the main figures from the first film have returned including director Jay Roach and writers James Herzfeld and John Hamburg. The story echoes that of Meet The Parents. This time though, with Greg and fiancée Pam (Teri Polo) planning their wedding, it's the potentially hazardous coming together of the in-laws that provides the set-up. The couple, along with Pam's parents Dina (Blythe Danner) and Jack (De Niro), their granddaughter and cat head down to Florida to meet the Fockers in Jack's state of the art RV, or "highlight of their twilight" as they refer to it.

The uptight Jack is the antithesis of the easy-going, gregarious Bernie. Stuck in the middle is the bumbling, ingratiating and uncomfortable Greg, who is doing his best to keep his marital plans on track while his father lobs in handgrenades like "one more thing about my vasectomy." The litany of embarrassing episodes includes a revelation about Greg's loss of virginity and the injection by Jack of a truth serum to help disclose whether his son-in-law is the parent of an illegitimate teenage boy.