Meh...

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2014)

In 2004, half of the 10 highest-grossing movies were sequels to previous box-office winners released less than 2 or 3 years before: "Shrek 2", "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", "Spider-Man 2", "Ocean Twelve" and naturally, "Meet the Fockers". It's also worth noticing that four of these five sequels were second installments. Obviously, you don't change a winning recipe is a motto followed by many producers, and who can blame them in an industry driven by money and profit?
But I'm not trying to be cynical, not yet. The reason I raise these statistics is because they prove indeed that the sequel of a good movie will always attract viewers, as if it was covering half-of the marketing budget just by being a sequel. The trick is to follow a pattern that succeeded and inject enough newness to surprise the viewers. The point is to never get too distant from the original material and still be new. Well, that can work with plot-driven movies and linear narrative; however, it's more difficult to be original when a film is the continuation of a situation-driven comedy, like "Meet the Parents".
The original film was about being an outsider, about a clash resulting from a triangular love : Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) loved his girlfriend, Pam (Teri Polo), Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) loved his daughter, so both guys had to get along despite their different mentalities. Naturally, at the end, they both started to appreciate each other, the peace pipe was smoked and all went well that ended well, so there had to be another plot device for the comic-of-opposition, so after an exhaustive brainstorm they thought: how about discovering Greg's family? And the casting of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as the Fockers' couple retired in Hawaii, could only be encouraging.
The effect would be doubled, first we have to replay the games with equal rules, it's time for good old Jack Byrnes to learn about the Fockers' customs and philosophy of life, and put in perspective his 'personal' methods. How someone who believes his daughter never had sex before marriage would deal with a sex-therapist? How would a constipated, overly-protective man deal with spontaneous persons who believe in letting nature speaks, and people to follow their instincts? Secondly, it would be exciting to discover what kind of parents could raise a boy like Gaylord Focker.
The problem is that the two premises cancel each other, the Fockers' irritate Byrnes because they're free-spirited, open-minded, everything he's not, but that's the way they are, and they never try to be something else, it's mildly funny but it's nothing compared to Greg's attempt to please Jack that turns out to be disasters. The second problem is that the parents are so optimistic, so jovial and upbeat, she believes in sex as the greatest medium of expression, he's a lawyer who believes that winning is not the most essential thing, how could they end up conceiving a guy like Greg.
Maybe it was the only way to turn Greg into the victim of both his parents and in-laws, following an unnecessary subplot where Jack suspects Greg to have a child with his former nurse (Alana Urbach), it doesn't quite work, not better than the drugs allegations in the former one. At the end, what is left to enjoy in "Meet the Fockers" is very communicative performance from Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand and probably, one of the greatest child-acting performances ever, through the cute Little Jack who'd learn one word from Gaylord Focker.
Unsurprisingly, at the end, they marry, they celebrate the wedding, everyone's happy, but nothing is much left to enjoy, it's fun, but nothing else. There was a true potential to let the differences between the Byrnes and the Fockers to escalate until the kind of confrontation where even the Fockers would acknowledge some flaws in their education, something that would justify why Greg is so ashamed of them. There could have been a much more hilarious climax (literally) during the massage scene, but instead of having an orgasm, Jack hurts his back again and gets upset.
So many wasted opportunities, but well, except for Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, the film doesn't provide much more originality, except for the funniest part of the film, the opening where everything goes perfectly fine for Greg, from the taxis to the airports, that was a clever way to put some distance from the original one, a pity that the rest didn't match it. But I guess the first opus' success asked for a sequel, even with declining quality.
Did I mention "Little Jack"? Yeah? So I guess it's time to conclude this review.
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