The Prudes meet the Perverts

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2004)

"Meet the Fockers" is a semi-jovial, semi-obscene (and surprisingly crude) followup to its 2000 hilarious predecessor. While "Parents" featured the ungainly, hapless Greg (Stiller) taking pains to impress his soon-to-be in-laws the Byrnes (De Niro and Danner) with disastrous results, "Fockers" concentrates on the hysterical escapades of Greg and Pam's seemingly opposite parents: the Byrnes are prudent, stealthy, and leery, while the Fockers are, well... overzealous, excessively perverted, and free-spirited sunshiners; sounds like additional catastrophe for a Focker-Byrnes reunion! The Fockers (Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand) enjoy partying and sexual innuendo, while the Byrnes (and mostly Jack) strive to familiarize an innocuous baby boy to the complexities and mendacities of the real world. So ensues a sometimes amusing, if frothy and sexually obscene(from the director of "Austin Powers"!), which never quite achieves the shrewd "comic scenarios" that made its predecessor such an outrageous hit. It's a more zany and feudal affair, yet not necessarily laugh-out-loud hilarious. At times the Fockers Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand are more of an annoyance than a comedic relief, their propensities rife with the typical Hollywood overload of sexual innuendos and philosophical condescension, and I found their natures to be misplaced for a different genre of comedy other than an otherwise promising "in-laws fiasco". I would have rather enjoyed seeing these couples collide culturally and ethically, rather than the Fockers discussing their egregious intimate details at the table and around the house! Note to Mike Roach and writer John Hamburg: the original's premise of "I'm watching you" and "Who's outwitting who" was plenty more hilarious than "I'll give you a massage" and "keep the hat on the door when you're getting it on". There are moments of jovial comedy, ironically when DeNiro and Stiller are butting heads once again, with DeNiro determined to undermine and ruin his "unworthy atrocity of a son-in-law"; the height of comedy is where DeNiro injects a truth-telling serum into Stiller and Stiller finds himself on stage making rabid confessions. My favorite character here is of course, Jack Byrnes, every guy's worst nightmare for a father-in-law, constantly intimidating and threatening, planting hidden cameras around the house, and investigating personal background searches to destroy any chances you may have with his precious daughter- and DeNiro is exceedingly brilliant in this part. "Meet the Fockers" is a comedy which perhaps attempts to overdo its ingenious predecessor in expanding its resources beyond the diligent cleverness and compatibility that propelled "Parents" in injecting a trashy sexual joke or two into a perfectly effective mix of humor. It entertains not when Hoffman (whose character, all things considered, is good-natured) and Streisand (to me, a contemptible character) "get it on" both verbally and physically, but rather, when we realize that the Byrnes and the Fockers are virtually incompatible, and the ex-CIA (Central Un-intelligent Agency, according to Bernie Focker) watchdog Jack Byrnes declares, "I'm not so sure this wedding is a good idea. I don't like what I'm seeing from these Fockers." All-in-all, a comedy that tries too hard to achieve unnecessary hilarity and spoils a perfectly entertaining and hysterical premise, yet still supplying some moments of the jovial genius that was the premise of "Meet the Parents". Maybe the third installment should be "Meet the Kids" or "Meet the Dogs"... or perhaps the premise is expired enough. **1/2 out of ****