Little Fockers Review

It's tough to see your favorite actors grow old. It's even tougher to see them grow old and demean themselves in increasingly crappy movies. That's the greatest feeling (aside from displeasure) one will walk away with from Little Fockers. This third installment in the Meet the Parents franchise finds male nurse and family man Gay "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller) and his ex-spy father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) continuing their battle of wills to ridiculous new highs (or is that lows?). As Greg and his wife Pam (Teri Polo) prepare for their young twins' upcoming birthday, Jack is nursing a heart condition that's got him mulling who should become the family's patriarch should he die. For reasons that I won't bother to spoil, Jack selects Greg who, of course, must endure a new set of tests and expectations. Greg, though, stands to ruin it all when he begins working with an exuberant and unbelievably hot drug company sales rep named Andi Garcia (like the actor Andy Garcia, get it?!), played by Jessica Alba. Andi is totally into Greg, which only make his mission to win over Jack that much more difficult. Will the ongoing battle between Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) finally end in a grisly bloodbath? Little Fockers is a colossal waste of such a talented group of actors. Owen Wilson goes through the motions as his grating returning character Kevin, Pam's ex-boyfriend-cum-New Age mogul, a part that should have just been a skit-length cameo but is instead stretched into a

major supporting role. Blythe Danner once again plays the thankless role of Jack's wife, getting one embarrassing "sexy" scene to give her character something to do. Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman (who was infamously brought back for last minute re-shoots after initially sitting out the film) reprise their roles as Greg's liberated parents, with the former playing up her "Dr. Ruth" schtick and the latter seemingly only in it to flamenco dance. Laura Dern has a cameo as a prep school administrator and exflame of Wilson's, but she is quickly introduced and then gotten rid of not unlike the completely needless casting of Harvey Keitel in a twoscene bit part as the contractor working on Greg's new house. Alba is fine as Greg's slightly kooky colleague who has the hots for him, but her character's simply a gimmick. This is the type of role Kelly LeBrock would have played once upon a time; at least Alba shows some capacity for comedy. Overall, though director Paul Weitz and Co. simply bring nothing new or fresh to the proceedings. Nearly all the gags fall flat, while everything plot-wise happens arbitrarily. Furthermore, some sequences are jarring in that they were obviously re-shoots (the length and tint of Wilson's hair noticeably changes during the climactic sequence). Theres a sequence in Little Fockers where we see De Niro brawling, which doesn't conjure as many laughs as it does sad reminders of how far away Raging Bull seems from the kind of films he's known for now. Add Hoffman and Keitel to the mix and it's practically the big screen equivalent of seeing Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, where aging icons appeared as shadows of their former selves.

Meet The Fockers Review

I wasnt expecting much from Meet the Fockers, a sequel to 2000s pretty successful comedy Meet the Parents. While I like watching Ben Stiller suffer, Ive seen him humiliated so much; its begun to give me tired head. But Meet the Fockers is a pleasant surprise. It carries on a lot of the same gags from the first film, but freshens things up by make the jokes about more than how many ways there are to sizzle Stillers Gaylord Focker. At first things are going uncharacteristically well for Gay. He, along with fiance Pam (Teri Polo) are headed to the home of her parents the Burns, where they will take a flight to Miami for a prewedding meeting between the two families. On their way to the airport a stranger offers to give Gay and Pam his cab. All the lights turn green for them and a ticket screw up lands them in first class where the evil stewardess from the previous film treats our Focker like royalty. After a bit of jostling in which Pams father convinces them all to take his massive, tank-like RV to Miami instead of a plane, were introduced to Gays parents the Fockers, who in an unexpectedly inspired bit of casting are played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand. The film quickly returns to familiarly uncomfortable territory, as the two families different ideologies clash and Stiller tells ridiculous lies to cover up for his own parents oddities.

Though De Niro quickly stole the show in the original film, it is Hoffman in a wonderfully weird turn as Fockers stay at home, tree hugging, emotionally open father that runs away with the sequel. Most of the films conflict and humor comes from direct culture clash between Hoffmans Bernie and De Niros Jack, with Stiller relegated to more of a middle man rather than as the sole recipient of the films sometimes rather vicious attacks. Hoffman delivers laugh out loud moments as he stages a sit in under the wheels of Jacks RV or douses Streisand in whipped cream for a particularly loud night of passion. Aside from a few moments of embarrassing humiliation at the hands of Jack Burns, Stiller comfortably takes a side seat as more of a reaction man while Gay and Pams parents handle most of the comedic heavy lifting. His constant state of paranoia is for the most part justified, his attempts to hide his familys oddities understandable in the face of his father-in-laws manic, judgmental, over-protectivity The sharp, funny tone of Meet the Fockers makes it a nice surprise and a movie easy to recommend. Streisand and Hoffman are a surprisingly nice fit in the Meet the world, and their addition gives the movie new material that it might not have had without them. This isnt just a second helping of Gaylord Focker humiliation, for once heres a comedy sequel that manages to revisit its world without banally repeating it. Meet the Fockers is comfortable and yet unpredictable. The result is undeniably funny.