[HEADING=1]Meet The Parents: Little Fockers[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]2010, Universal & Paramount Pictures[/HEADING]
Starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro
[HEADING=3]The Movie that was a Genuine Surprise[/HEADING]
Hello chaps and lassies. It's pretty unlikely that you'll know who I am since I'm a new born to the Escapist's circuit of witty, wiz reviewers. Seems only right that I should introduce myself - but then again, suppose not, let's keep some mystery hanging in the air. If you enjoy my first review, I may well buy you a drink someday. All the same, bottoms up to a good old read at the very least.
So, this review is on Universal Pictures' new release of the Meet the Parents franchise. Most of us will know, from the original, Meet the Parents, and the sequel, Meet the Fockers, that these movies are the kind of entertainment you only really resort to in the afternoon in front of the television or a surprisingly uneventful time of life. However, contrary to this - and rather by accident - I found myself going to see this movie at the cinema not long before Christmas. The thought of paying £7 to see a movie I'd only really been inclined to sit through when bored was comforted mildly by the people I had the pleasure of going with. All the same, the cinematic experience of watching the third edition of Meet the Parents through me completely off-guard.
It was rather good.
[HEADING=3]Slapping my expectations in the face:[/HEADING]
After watching the trailer for Little Fockers I must admit that my overall expectations were as low as anyone's would've been. It seemed as though the entirety of the movie would be a jumble of puke gags, slapstick accidents and a smack in the face of the old "man hates his CIA step-Dad" larky. To my glorious delight, this wasn't the case. I mean, fair enough, the trailer hadn't paid it any favours and my expectations were pretty low in general, but this movie didn't just prove me wrong; it took the "You're wrong" baton and pummelled me into apologies.
I'll tell you why. The Little Fockers plot drops the over-played obsession with CIA stalking from Robert De Niro's character, Jack Byrnes, but it doesn't throw it away and shove them into a new plot with a sudden white-wash opinion, it just makes it all more subtle. When watching Little Fockers the plot and character development is surprisingly good. As much as it pains me to say, there is something extremely human in the relationship between De Niro's Byrnes and Stiller's Focker - ever be it a whacky human aura.
Sure, the story hasn't lost it's ability to be annoying and frustrating because of the cheap dialogue and dumb ability in handling almost every situation, but for the first time with the Meet the Parents movies, I can hold my hand in the air and go: "I don't care." This story is much more focused on the morals and family life aspect, juggling this with opportunities to pursue a career and Stiller's character, Gay Lord (Greg) Focker's, thoughts and whirlwinds as he begins to realise the spark between he and his wife is flashing less so every day.
Little Fockers didn't make the mistake of hanging around the children all the time either. Hamburg and Stuckey, who write the film franchise, are also in good relationships with Ben Stiller and you can tell that they know what the film needs from Stiller for it to work the magic Stiller rarely pulls off. The children are discarded as mere 'objects of intrusion' in the narrative progress of the movie and therefore they're usually the expense of a joke or an emotionally wet moment. It's as though the Little Fockers in question are the prop to Hamburg and Stuckey's clever, witty jokes and also - shamefully - their incredibly cheap, palm-to-face, desperate begging for laughs.
[HEADING=3]The folks (characters):[/HEADING]
A revitalising feature to Little Fockers is the gorgeous character, Andi Garcia - No, not the bloke actor, although there is a fairly hilarious pun about this at the start. Garcia, played by the stunningly beautiful Jessica Alba definitely gave the film some sex appeal and had it continued to be the 'tempting lady' of Focker's working life, then sure, it'd have been a good casted character. Unfortunately, it wasn't the case. Hamburg and Stuckey went ahead in writing dialogue for her and the results are a bullet in the movie's knee caps. Alba's acting, in Little Fockers, is the cliche annoying damsel-in-distress kind of women, but without any genuine problems. The most annoying aspect of her character being the repeated gesture to say good bye by whining out an over-enthusiastic word: "Fiiissstttsss", before knuckling Stiller's knuckles. I guess what made up for it was Stiller's uncompromising stare in every scene Alba took too, even when he was meant to be acting out a rejection of sex nearer the latter part of the movie.
Obviously, Robert De Niro is in this movie once more, taking a break from his spoof/serious gangster acting and taking a back seat as the over-obsessive, ex-CIA father in-law of the Focker family. De Niro's acting is what you can expect it to be. He sounds, acts and over-acts to push through the Hamburg and Stuckey jokes that - for whatever reason - I have a feeling he hates. Luckily for De Niro, the lack of sophistication in writing jokes is probably made-up for him as the audience is given the pleasure of his face in the majority of the movie. Perhaps director Paul Weitz has a soft spot for De Niro's unusually tanned elderly face? I guess that's something we'll never know.
The other characters include another return from broken-nose blondie, AKA Owen Wilson, who spends the whole moving drawling over Pam Focker, Greg's wife (played by Teri Polo). Yet, it doesn't matter how annoying you may find Owen Wilson - especially as the rich Broke Back Mountain impersonator mixed up with lady's man syndrome that he plays in this movie - the Meet the Parents franchise always seems to cheer us right up at the end by brutally smashing his character into mental distress or physical embarrassment. That, my friends, is joy to my eyes.
Of course, the Focker family wouldn't have the same immature, sex-obsessed ring to it without the mother, Roz Focker (played incredibly well by the talented Barbara Streisand) and the father, Bernie Focker (played amusingly by Dustin Hoffman). The parenthood of Greg Focker is always a good laugh. Roz Focker is granted her own sex guidance TV show that throws out a fair few barrels of laughs, and Bernie Focker is off in Spain strutting his stuff, which is completely stupid and, sorry to admit, rather brilliant.
[HEADING=3]A scramble of other thought processes:[/HEADING]
So, when you sit through this review, the most important lesson I could give is that you should never judge a movie by the trailer. However, saying that, the Meet the Parents franchise will always be TV-material to me. Big screen? Well, sure you get the cheesy-violin music in surround sound and the beautiful Jessica Alba on large screen, but it lacks the good old feel of appreciation you might award it had you been at home, bored in the afternoon, with the TV on a channel you can't be bothered to change... and a Mars bar.
This movie is fun and that's all it really manages. Yes, it isn't the cheap comic rubbish that I expected it to be and, yes, it's not the repetitive saga of storylines, but the movie in itself only really tries to teach you to value family life. It teaches you this in a random five minute section near the beginning and it cements the idea in your brain at the end with a joke at the expense of Owen Wilson. The rest of the movie, on the other hand, just looks like Ben Stiller's having a mess-around party and felt like dragging Robert De Niro in, paying him in walnuts to say special things.
[HEADING=3]Overall:[/HEADING]
The Storyline: 5/10 - but fun
The Characters: 9/10 - I love them, they're 'real' and great fun to watch
Music: 5/10 - it's the kind of thing you expect to hear on some home-made pirate movie or a goofy version of The Pink Panther
Directing: 7/10 - for what the movie is, it's the kind of thing you'd expect - Nothing special
Comic Rating: 7/10 - surprisingly clever at times
Attention Rating: 8/10 - good length, perhaps a little short; some gags repeated
[HEADING=3]Rating: 41/60
"Pretty Damn Good"[/HEADING]
