Meet the Fockers

Meet the Fockers - **

If the greatest problem facing movies today is that of unnecessary sequels, Meet the Fockers is the perfect representation of what's wrong in Hollywood. Directed by Jay Roach and stocked with A-level celebrities such as Ben Stiller, Robert Deniro, Blythe Danner, Barbara Streisand and the legendary Dustin Hoffman, it has great potential on paper. However, the film falls into a sinkhole of unoriginality that takes away nearly all the potential for enjoyment. Stiller's Greg Focker has survived a weekend with his wife Pam's (Teri Polo) parents Jack and Dina (Robert Deniro and Blythe Danner), but the tables are turned when he must introduce them to his parents Bernie and Roz Focker (played quite well by Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand). This provides room for some character progression, but in the end it's just same old well meaning idiot Greg, along with the hard edged father in law Jack, and the new parents do nothing but serve to reinforce the superiority of one family over the other. It wouldn't be bad if the characters were the only thing brought back verbatim from the original "Meet the Parents", but in fact many of the jokes from the original are repeated here. There is so much repitition that the only really satisfying humour comes from the new characters (the Fockers), and even they are only funny in small doses. As for the actors, they play their parts perfectly well, but no one could have rescued this film. The performances are the only thing that make it better than "The Whole Ten Yards", another unnecessary sequel. Thumbs down.