It began so simply with Meet the Parents. Nervous Ben Stiller visits his girlfriend's family; her dad is scary Robert De Niro; farcical set pieces ensue. Meet the Fockers introduced Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Stiller's parents, a clever idea in theory without much yield when put into cast-swelling practice.
Now we have arrived at Little Fockers, which by title focuses on Stiller's children but in practice turns into an anthology of situations intended to engineer the same old conflicts between insecure, put-upon Greg Focker and stern, no-nonsense Jack Byrnes. Lacking the original hook of meeting the parents, the secondary hook of meeting another set of parents or a plausible way for anyone to meet small children with disastrous slapstick, Little Fockers is loosely arranged around Jack's three tenets for patriarchal responsibility as outlined to Greg: quality education, a safe home, and sound finances.
Really, though, these topics function as broad headings for gags set up with mechanical obviousness. Quality education for the twin children of Greg and Pam (Teri Polo) becomes an excuse for Jack and Greg to visit a progressive, expensive private elementary school with a dippy headmaster (Laura Dern, funny in her brief and disconnected scenes); a safe home means a touch of construction-based slapstick; and sound finances get head nurse Greg to get into business with pharmaceutical rep Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba), who's plugging a new erectile dysfunction drug engineered for maximum sexual misunderstanding.
Even those broad outlines don't touch upon meager yet still time-wasting subplots for Streisand, Hoffman, Owen Wilson as Pam's pining ex-boyfriend, and Blythe Danner (playing Jack's wife and, as always, just looking happy to be there). The simplicity of the first movie's farce has long since become overpopulated and clumsy with so many actors underfoot. In fact, the first thirty or forty minutes of Little Fockers takes great pains to explain various absences, entrances, and exits of the disparate ensemble; it feels like the chintzy reunion episode of a sitcom.
Even as the movie lurches past its set-up, it continues to appear stitched together based on the limited availability of its cast, which I would estimate at an average of three shooting days apiece. So in between the scenes of embarrassment and ribald slapstick, director Paul Weitz must shuffle characters in and out of scenes, with Stiller and De Niro as the only constants. The film even pauses for a laborious explanation of how and why Jinx the Cat is able to make a third-act appearance, ample evidence that the screenwriters would consider new jokes the trickiest task of all.
There's such a traffic jam that the movie's comic priorities get out of whack: Wilson has more screentime than ever, yet he and Stiller barely get any of the back-and-forth dialogue that defines their delightfully contentious verbal chemistry in other movies. Even stranger, Alba gives a funnier, more charming performance than many of the professional comedians and/or legendary veterans; she's not exactly Anna Faris, but maintaining contrast with the buttoned-up Stiller keeps her looser and more natural than she managed in the likes of The Love Guru.
Stiller and De Niro, meanwhile, keep doing their shtick. De Niro actually gets a fair number of laughs early on as Jack broods in his basement: stone-facedly tracing his family's genealogy, self-treating a heart attack, and asking Greg if he has what it takes to be the "GodFocker." For all of De Niro's attempts at self-parody, Jack Byrnes remains a vividly rendered character: the unsmiling WASP who runs his family with ruthless CIA efficiency. But as his deadpan interactions with Stiller harden into the usual suspicions and face-offs about the future of his family, Little Fockers locks into franchise routine. These films might be funnier if they allowed any of the characters to grow, or their relationships to deepen; at this point, Stiller and De Niro are funnier as uneasy buddies than awkward rivals, simply because there haven't been two previous movies featuring the former. Unfortunately, punishing familiarity is the brand here, with plenty of repeated moments and catchphrases that might be designated as callbacks in a better series, but here just come off like self-satisfied curtain calls.
As ramshackle and lazy as Little Fockers is -- at least half of those fussed-over subplots, including what might have been, at some point, an entire Harvey Kietel character rather than a cameo, disappear without a trace of resolution -- it may manage a few more incidental chuckles than its immediate predecessor. But I couldn't say for sure; to be honest, I stopped keeping track ten years ago, when the first movie came and went with Jack Byrnes-style efficiency. Since then, no one has stepped up to whip the series back into fighting shape.
Now we have arrived at Little Fockers, which by title focuses on Stiller's children but in practice turns into an anthology of situations intended to engineer the same old conflicts between insecure, put-upon Greg Focker and stern, no-nonsense Jack Byrnes. Lacking the original hook of meeting the parents, the secondary hook of meeting another set of parents or a plausible way for anyone to meet small children with disastrous slapstick, Little Fockers is loosely arranged around Jack's three tenets for patriarchal responsibility as outlined to Greg: quality education, a safe home, and sound finances.
Really, though, these topics function as broad headings for gags set up with mechanical obviousness. Quality education for the twin children of Greg and Pam (Teri Polo) becomes an excuse for Jack and Greg to visit a progressive, expensive private elementary school with a dippy headmaster (Laura Dern, funny in her brief and disconnected scenes); a safe home means a touch of construction-based slapstick; and sound finances get head nurse Greg to get into business with pharmaceutical rep Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba), who's plugging a new erectile dysfunction drug engineered for maximum sexual misunderstanding.
Even those broad outlines don't touch upon meager yet still time-wasting subplots for Streisand, Hoffman, Owen Wilson as Pam's pining ex-boyfriend, and Blythe Danner (playing Jack's wife and, as always, just looking happy to be there). The simplicity of the first movie's farce has long since become overpopulated and clumsy with so many actors underfoot. In fact, the first thirty or forty minutes of Little Fockers takes great pains to explain various absences, entrances, and exits of the disparate ensemble; it feels like the chintzy reunion episode of a sitcom.
Even as the movie lurches past its set-up, it continues to appear stitched together based on the limited availability of its cast, which I would estimate at an average of three shooting days apiece. So in between the scenes of embarrassment and ribald slapstick, director Paul Weitz must shuffle characters in and out of scenes, with Stiller and De Niro as the only constants. The film even pauses for a laborious explanation of how and why Jinx the Cat is able to make a third-act appearance, ample evidence that the screenwriters would consider new jokes the trickiest task of all.
There's such a traffic jam that the movie's comic priorities get out of whack: Wilson has more screentime than ever, yet he and Stiller barely get any of the back-and-forth dialogue that defines their delightfully contentious verbal chemistry in other movies. Even stranger, Alba gives a funnier, more charming performance than many of the professional comedians and/or legendary veterans; she's not exactly Anna Faris, but maintaining contrast with the buttoned-up Stiller keeps her looser and more natural than she managed in the likes of The Love Guru.
Stiller and De Niro, meanwhile, keep doing their shtick. De Niro actually gets a fair number of laughs early on as Jack broods in his basement: stone-facedly tracing his family's genealogy, self-treating a heart attack, and asking Greg if he has what it takes to be the "GodFocker." For all of De Niro's attempts at self-parody, Jack Byrnes remains a vividly rendered character: the unsmiling WASP who runs his family with ruthless CIA efficiency. But as his deadpan interactions with Stiller harden into the usual suspicions and face-offs about the future of his family, Little Fockers locks into franchise routine. These films might be funnier if they allowed any of the characters to grow, or their relationships to deepen; at this point, Stiller and De Niro are funnier as uneasy buddies than awkward rivals, simply because there haven't been two previous movies featuring the former. Unfortunately, punishing familiarity is the brand here, with plenty of repeated moments and catchphrases that might be designated as callbacks in a better series, but here just come off like self-satisfied curtain calls.
As ramshackle and lazy as Little Fockers is -- at least half of those fussed-over subplots, including what might have been, at some point, an entire Harvey Kietel character rather than a cameo, disappear without a trace of resolution -- it may manage a few more incidental chuckles than its immediate predecessor. But I couldn't say for sure; to be honest, I stopped keeping track ten years ago, when the first movie came and went with Jack Byrnes-style efficiency. Since then, no one has stepped up to whip the series back into fighting shape.
