Some of it is funny

Rating: 4/10 (4 April 2001)

Some of this movie is very funny, but most of it is just plain cruel and doesn't deserve a chuckle. Ben Stiller plays Greg, the soon-to-be fiance of Pam (Teri Polo), who's just meeting her parents for the first time. Her parents, especially her father (Robert De Niro), not only reject him, they treat him like a piece of unwanted garbage. Personally, I would have just walked out after the first five minutes with the parents and never would have seen her again. I wouldn't WANT to marry into a family as arrogant as that. But anyway, Greg spends an entire weekend with the in-laws where NOTHING goes right for him. This is an obvious take on the the first sequence of "There's Something About Mary". It's wasn't remotely funny in "Mary", and it doesn't work here either. If you have the mentality of a 12 to 16-year-old, you may enjoy it. But for the rest of us, it just tries too hard to be funny. It doesn't flow very well, and most of the situations don't make a lot of sense. They just sort of "happen" for no reason, hopelessly trying to get a few laughs.