All-star craptacular

Rating: 1/10 (28 October 2008)

In Meet the Parents, Ben Stiller was a jittery boyfriend planning to ask for his girlfriend's hand and desperate to win the approval of her parents, particularly ex-CIA borderline psychotic dad Robert DeNiro, only to find his efforts consistently blowing up in his face through a series of Murphy's Law-style shenanigans. It was not trying to be the greatest film ever made and generated enough genuine belly laughs and pleasantness to rank as a success. Certainly part of the success was generated from the prickly chemistry between DeNiro and Stiller, and the fact that pretty much anyone could identify with the well-meaning efforts made by Stiller that did not pan out. Naturally a sequel was concocted wherein the future in-laws would now meet Stiller's folks. Sadly the pleasantness and belly laughs of the original are missing in action, despite amping up the cast. DeNiro's conservative ex-CIA psycho is etched to such a one-note extreme that he seems to be one-day shy of becoming an ax murderer. Stiller has been reduced to doing nothing but stare slack-jawed from the sidelines. Similar to the first film, both Teri Polo (as the girlfriend) and Blythe Danner (as her mom) are treated as slightly better than props. As Stiller's parents, the casting department scores the coup of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand. In fairness, I dreaded Streisand, but surprisingly found her playing the only character that could seemingly exist outside of this film and one of the few to not irritate me beyond measure. She is not given anything particularly funny to do, but she does play her role well enough. By contrast Hoffman, portraying the kind of touchy-feely overly emotional liberal that exists only in the minds of crummy screenwriters and FOX News pundits, is excruciating to endure. Watching he and DeNiro, both of them playing extreme caricatures that could not possibly survive in the real world detached from this woeful film, is nearly surreal in its badness. The comedy at large is dreadful - with much of it being divided between the Fockers hormone-crazed dog that DeNiro's cat tries to flush down the toilet in a painfully strained moment, and DeNiro's obnoxious tot grandson (is there another kind?) that he has dragged along for cheap reaction shots. Competition for the film's lowest moment (aside from any time Hoffman opens his mouth) is fierce. Normally I would defer to the introduction of the Focker's busty Latin maid (who also provided Stiller's first sexual experience), which results in unending shots of the baby grandson leering at her cleavage. However, the worst is given an entire time-consuming subplot to pad out this already odious film, wherein DeNiro becomes convinced that the maid's good-natured teenage son is really Stiller's love child. With no proof whatsoever and no thought to the consequences this would have an innocent bystander, DeNiro shoots up Stiller with sodium pentathol, convinces him the teen is his child, and then systematically sets in motion the public humiliation of BOTH Stiller and the teen. Thereafter, the plot strand is dropped - with no further appearance by the kid nor any inference that anyone has told him this was all a lie. This entire scenario must take up roughly 30+ minutes of screen time, generates nary one laugh, and then is completely forgotten like there were not people other than Stiller who were injured by DeNiro's machinations. Owen Wilson makes a brief return at the end (seriously he and Stiller should be banned from working together), but charitable viewers may forget he is in it. There is talk of another sequel, but I have seen enough Fockers (and members of DeNiro's family) to last a lifetime after this sequel.