"MTF" evokes more laughs than its side-splitting predecessor.

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2008)

Anybody who laughed themselves silly watching the Ben Stiller & Robert De Niro in-laws farce "Meet The Parents" (2000) will probably find its long-overdue sequel "Meet The Fockers" incredibly hilarious from fade-in to fade-out. Rare remains the sequel that surpasses the original, but "MTF" evokes more laughs than its side-splitting predecessor. Not surprisingly, "MTF" gets even more mileage out of the suggestively obscene surname of the Ben Stiller protagonist: Greg Focker. For example, we learn about Greg's cousins: Randy and Orney as well as his uncle Dom. In fact, director Jay Roach convinced the Motion Picture Producers of America (the MPPA) to let the title stand, because some families have Focker as their last name! Whether the family name appears on a caller ID or a book cover, the filmmakers never miss a chance to use the name for the sake of comedy. Furthermore, much of the laughter this time around arises from lowest common denominator gags of the "American Pie" variety rather than the catastrophic Murphy's Laws lunacy of "MTP." Good sequels build on the foundation of the original, and the highlight of "MTF" is the inspired casting of Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman as Ben Stiller's parents. Streisand hasn't had this much loopy fun on-screen since 1972 when she drove Ryan O'Neal nuts in Peter Bogdanovich's "What's Up, Doc?" Meanwhile, Dustin Hoffman of "Tootsie" steals the show with his outrageously energetic antics. You've never see Hoffman as hammy as he is here. When they appear together in a scene, Hoffman and Streisand dominate it, even with DeNiro in the same room. In "MTP," Ben Stiller struggled to make a good impression on his fiancée's uptight, WASPy father, a recently retired CIA psychological profiler (Robert DeNiro of "Analyze This") who took an immediate dislike to him because he was a male nurse. In "MTF," Stiller finds himself caught in the middle between his own loony-tunes parents and his suspicious future father-in-law. One-fourth of the humor is watching Stiller act like a referee, the second-fourth is the Streisand/Hoffman casting as his crazy folks, the third-fourth is DeNiro making a boob out of himself, and the last fourth is a top-drawer performance by twins Spencer and Bradley as Little Jack.
No, you don't really need to have seen "MTP" to laugh your fanny off at "MTF." If you like to laugh out loud, and crude, uncouth clowning doesn't offend you, you'll have a giddy good time. Basically, scenarists John Herzfeld and John Hamburg (who penned the original) have recycled the same predicament, but they put Robert DeNiro's Jack Byrnes at the mercy of Greg's parents, Bernie and Roz (Dustin Hoffman & Barbara Streisand), rather than making Greg the butt of all the jokes. One of the funnier Greg jokes is the revelation about how our hero lost his virginity. The dinner scene where one of Greg's treasured keepsakes from the baby delivery room that his parents have preserved is another. As the film unspools, Jack has agreed grudgingly to meet Greg's parents. Instead of flying off to Florida to meet the Fockers, Jack hauls his wife Dina (Blythe Danner of "The Prince of Tides"), their grandson Little Jack (twins Spencer & Bradley Picken) along with Pam (Teri Polo of "Mystery Date") and Greg in an RV that resembles something out of a James Bond spy thriller. Yes, Jack cooks up a scene here as good as the lie-detector test in "MTP." The impressionable grandson belongs to Pam's nephew, and Little Jack is so young that Jack still prefers to feed him freshly-pumped mother's milk from a life-like breast prosthesis that the elder Jack wears strapped across his chest like a shoulder holster. You guessed it, "MTP" contains gross, physical humor. The sight of a closely-cropped, scowling Robert DeNiro of "Taxi Driver" fame sporting a single, false female breast had the audience that I sat with howling for their lives. Thoroughly manipulative as always, Jack intends to raise Little Jack using the denial method. In other words, Jack doesn't indulge Little Jack. He tenders him tough love. No TV. No candy. No Sympathy. When they meet Roz and Bernie, Jack and Dina confront their worse nightmare. Roz earns her living as a sex therapist who writes self-help books like "Is Your Vagina Happy?" and "Meet Your Orgasm." Bernie is a former lawyer turned house-husband who loves to lock the doors and cover Roz with shaving cream. Another sight-gag that comes into good use is a hat that Bernie hangs on the bedroom door knob. As free-wheeling, hippies from the 1960s, you can imagine how they crate on poor Jack and criticize his parenting methods. When Jack isn't looking, Bernie and Roz spoil Little Jack. Alas, when bad luck prone Greg tries to spoil Little Jack, he accidentally teaches the toddler a profane word that the little guy does his level best to wear out in front of everybody.
Director Jay Roach (who helmed the "Austin Powers" trilogy) gets away with more than you'd think this time. One subplot involves a toilet-trained kitty and a small dog with an addiction to sex. Combine the two and imagine the worst. The scene where Roz gives Jack a massage is probably the funniest that you'll ever see Barbara Streisand in with an actor the stature of Robert DeNiro. Sure, the humor is slapstick but it rarely stops slapping. The only drawback to a classic like "MTF" is that too many people will still be laughing when crucial dialogue is delivered immediately after a joke. Altogether, rude, crude, and contagiously funny, "Meet the Fockers" will knock you off your rocker!