Hard to warm up to it.....

Rating: 5/10 (1 July 2010)

Frankly, I did not find the film to be very funny or entertaining. It seems that the measure of a film now-a-days is not how much it entertains, but how well it does at the box office. Some pretty lousy films have done well with ticket sales, while some other films have had something to say, but have fallen short of the dollar mark. This was an OK film, but not one that I would call a "must see" movie. And then, for it to spawn a sequel is beyond all belief. I tried to give the movie a fair watching--after all, I assumed that with De Niro on the screen there would be much there to watch--but I kept finding myself mouthing off the words of the kids in the back seat of the van ..." are we there yet??" De Niro has a broad spectrum, a big range for his acting talents. But he is an extraordinary actor who, it seems, falls flat on his face when he is not cast as an extraordinary character. It was awfully big of him to take the role of the father, but it felt more like casting Humphrey Bogart as an extra. And as for Ben Stiller...he still has a ways to go to establish a screen persona. His character was somewhat nebulous...though he did well at defining how vulnerable the character was. Comparing Stiller to De Niro, or even to his father, Jerry, is something of an unfair comparison, but he has yet to come up with that defining character or characteristic. The situations are stretched somewhat out of proportion, and Jay Roach's direction works far better with Mike Myers, where reckless abandon of plot and characters are the rule and not the exception. Based on what I saw in this film, I am in no hurry to see "The Fockers". I only recommend this film if you have nothing better to do.