Great cast of actors....but just not very funny

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2006)

"Meet the Fockers" casts a group of actors who had the potential to make this movie very funny indeed: Robert DeNiro showed that he could do comedy very well in "Meet the Parents" and "Analyze This", I love Dustin Hoffmann's movies in general, and of course, Ben Stiller is a veteran of many crazy comedies.
However, the main problem with this movie is the script. I was even more puzzled with the poor writing after seeing that the script for "Fockers" was written by exactly the same people as "Parents". What happened? Was the original just a one-off for them or were they pressured into rushing through a sequel? The jokes and subplots are rehashes of the ones from the the original movie: e.g. we now have a Football match in the Fockers' garden instead of the water polo game (but with different people getting injured) and the "big secret" in the sequel involves Pam's pregnancy instead of a fake Mr Jinx. The producers must have decided that since the original jokes were so successful, a winning formula should not be tampered with. There could have been golden moments in this movie. Over dinner, Hoffmann and DeNiro are about to become engaged in an argument over the CIA (or the "CLIA" as Hoffmann puts it -- Central Lack of Intelligence Agency). I was really looking forward to the confrontation, but it was never played out to the full. What a pity.
It was during the final 20-30 minutes of the movie that the quality really took a nose dive. I found the part involving Greg's potential bastard son, Jorge, very forced. It was as if Jorge was introduced into the plot just to embarrass Greg. Also, the Highway Patrol Officer character at the end was terribly overacted...perhaps this was supposed to make the movie more funny (if so, I don't think it worked)? One of the main strengths of the original movie is that characters like Jack Byrnes and the Annoying Air Stewardess are somewhat believable. Perhaps the characters are slightly exaggerated but we've all seen people who have a Jack Byrnes streak about them. As a result, Jorge and the Officer don't really have a place in this movie.
Still, the main characters save this film from being truly mediocre. The interactions between Hoffmann, DeNiro, Streisand and Stiller is fun (but not, unfortunately, funny) to watch. Wouldn't it be great to have a Dad like Bernard Focker (but perhaps a *little* less zany)?! I loved that he practices capoeira -- that's a classic =). Also the beginning of the movie involving the journey to the Byrnes' house was quite funny for me because, unexpectedly, everything goes completely smoothly! The Annoying Air Stewardess makes a brief reappearance, but she's not so annoying this time.
Overall, this movie is fun to watch for the main characters. Unfortunately, it's fairly devoid of laughs in general.