Mon beau-père, mes parents et moi

"Meet the Fockers" sounds like "Meet the f-u-u-…". Oops! Can't say that because of FCC guidelines. Just the same, the title pretty much describes the level of the humor in this Ben Stiller comedy. But that's redundant because it IS a Ben Stiller movie. Clearly my expectations for this movie were not high and, maybe because of that, I found "Meet the Fockers" quite funny.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a movie for everyone. First off, the writers did not miss a single opportunity to play off of the name "Focker". It's silly and gets a little old but it somehow works with the other repetitious low-down gags.

Focker is the family name for Greg (Focker), Ben Stiller. The funniest Fockers, however, (now I'm doing it) are Greg's parents Bernie and Roz, a loose and liberal Florida hippy couple still living in the last century and enjoying every minute of it. Dustin Hoffman, as Bernie displays a previously unrevealed talent for over the top comedy. Fitting perfectly with Hoffman's Bernie, is Barbra Streisand as Roz Focker, reminiscent of the "zaftig" Lainie Kazan. Bernie is a yesteryear lawyer who has not practiced since who knows when. Roz is the main breadwinner from her business as a sex therapist to the elderly.

Greg is not too eager to reveal his parents' true nature to his fiancée's parents as they all come to visit to get to know one another better. Teri Polo nicely plays Greg's fiancée Pam. Robert DeNiro and Blythe Danner play her stiff and straight parents, Jack and Dina Byrnes. Oh – also add in some baby low-brow by Spencer and Bradley Pickeren, two adorable twins playing Little Jack.

So, go low, go loose -- or don't go at all -- but if you like Ben Stiller, go see "Meet the Fockers". Dustin's antics will crack you up and you'll enjoy Barbra back on the big screen after so long. Rated a B+.

I beg to disagree with most of the critics on this one. I actually liked this movie a little better than 'Meet the Parents', and it is very rare for me to prefer a sequel to the original. There was some good acting in this movie, which is no wonder given the caliber of the cast. Make no mistake, this was definitely not a masterpiece, the script could have been better and the last 20 minutes of the film are a little overdone and cheesy, but all in all a decent, entertaining movie.

One thing I found to be a little disturbing about this film is the message it sends, especially to the younger audience: 'It is wrong to be straight, to have strong principles and self-discipline (the Byrnes), whereas it is proper to have no inhibitions, no discipline, no job (somehow everybody is rich anyway) and the world is just a happy merry-go-round (the Fockers). Even coming from liberal Hollywood, this is still wrong.

Firmly part of the circle of trust, Greg Focker is planning his marriage to Dina and has put off a big family get together for as long as he can. With no further excuses, Greg and Dina join Pam and Jack as they take their RV down to Florida to meet the Focker family. With an eye very much on his bloodline, Jack is keen to judge his future son-in-law by his parents, which spells problems when he finds himself living with two very liberal and touchy-feely Fockers.

I'm in my thirties now and it probably is not very impressive that I can put words together in a basic sentence. Whereas for a two year old it might be a real surprise if they were to discuss their opinions on political matters as such with you. What is the difference? Well it is simply one of expectation. Coming to the subject of films, expectation can often make or break a film, with perhaps a poor Pauly Shore movie being better received by viewers than a poor Spielberg film partly because you expect that standard from the former but more from the latter. So it does help this film that with the very title you are informed that you are not about to witness the sharpest of comedies.

With this in mind I went in with a forgiving eye, just hoping for laughs but I was not really prepared for how most of the film is unimaginative and base. In the first film we had Greg contrast with stern father Jack and hilarity ensues; here we have the same setup again but this time Greg is replaced as a device by his parents. What this means is that the film essentially aims at the same low targets as the first film and mostly hits them. To avoiding being too boorish on this subject I will admit that moments are funny and that the casting was a nice try but mostly I just found it obvious and dull. Toilet humour, a retread of the CIA stuff and so on supposedly provide the comedy while the drama is the same superficial relationship stuff as before.

The cast mostly do their best to try and lift it. Stiller mugs along well enough but the real fun (such as it is) comes from De Niro and Hoffman. The former more or less just does his stuff again but is enjoyable enough, while the latter is at least having fun with a silly character. Streisand and Polo have lesser roles but still have a bit of fun, while poor Danner is just a plot device to try and the give the film some sort of centre. Cameos from Wilson and Nelson don't add much to proceedings and don't even get me starting on the annoying Pickren twins who are not only irritating but made more irritating by the way the film overuses them, apparently in the belief that "Little Jack" is funny and/or cute when really he is neither. Roach's direction is nothing short of pedestrian – even the choice of theme music is obvious and easy.

Overall then this is a film that people who really liked the first film will enjoy. Those that just "liked" it may find that they didn't like it enough to watch it twice, which is what is happening here. The cast play it up as much as they can but really this is just an extension of the original idea done bigger but to lesser effect.

In Meet The Parents Ben Stiller had to win the trust of Robert DeNiro and Blythe Danner the parents of his girl friend Teri Polo, that famed 'circle of trust' in the Byrnes family. Now the whole family is going to Florida where Stiller's parents the Fockers have a palatial estate and ideas that definitely run counter to those espoused by DeNiro.

That opposition is the basis of the wonderful comedy in this sequel to Meet The Parents. With the casting of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Stiller's parents, Meet The Fockers is as funny, maybe funnier than the original film.

A whole lot of Focker family secrets are exposed in this comedy and with three of the biggest movie names in the past 40 years in the cast there was definitely built in box office. DeNiro, Hoffman, and Streisand show some incredible comic timing in this film.

There's nothing these two families agree on. Even down to the fact that Hoffman's a dog person and DeNiro a cat person is humorous material. The cat turning on the dog in the DeNiro/Danner trailer is a memorable scene.

Another favorite of mine are the touch football sequence. I doubt Kennedy family touch football was ever like this. There's also a memorable encounter with a Barney Fife like deputy where DeNiro, Hoffman, and Stiller all go to the pokey. Oddly enough Danner and Streisand hit it off well. Streisand is a sex therapist and makes good money doing it as we see by the way the Fockers live. In fact Hoffman though a lawyer became a stay at home dad. That really gets super macho DeNiro's dander up.

Fans of any and all of the players here should make Meet The Fockers a must for your viewing list.

Series note: As this is a direct continuation of Meet the Parents (2000), it is recommended that you watch that film first. It gives necessary background exposition and characterization for this film.

Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller) and fiancée Pam Byrnes' (Teri Polo) wedding is fast approaching, and their parents still have not met each other. So Greg and Pam fly from Chicago to New York to meet her parents, Jack (Robert De Niro) and Dina (Blythe Danner), before heading off with them to Miami to meet his parents, Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) and Mother Focker Roz (Barbara Streisand). The problem is that the Byrnes are staid, conservative (though slightly crazy) types who would never think of showing public affection, while the Fockers are still hippies--she is a sex therapist for elderly couples and he's a lawyer who became Mr. Mom once Gaylord was born. Can Gaylord keep his parents reined in enough to not cause Jack blow his lid and try to stop the wedding? Although I didn't think Meet the Fockers was quite as funny or successful as Meet the Parents, it's still funny and successful, with a bit less of an emphasis on nonstop outrageous humor and a bit more of an emphasis on the often amusing complexities of extended family relationships.

If you've seen Meet the Parents first--and you should--some of the material, such as Gaylord's job, jokes based on the "Focker" name, and even Jack's background and disposition will have less of an impact, which initially partially depends on novelty and surprise. Additionally, director Jay Roach and the writing team of James Herzfeld, Marc Hyman and John Hamburg telegraph quite a few of the punch lines. For just one example, it's obvious that something is going to happen to Gaylord's rental car in New York as soon as we hear him opt out of purchasing insurance, blowing it off as a "scam" to make money.

On the other hand, Roach and crew make it clear from the start that they're not exactly shooting for the same style of film as Meet the Parents. This is evident from the beginning, which cleverly pokes fun at Meet the Parents' "gradually going to hell in a handbasket" style by having everything go exactly right.

Roach aims for classic scenarios of families colliding that have surprisingly serious subtexts (and in the real world, these kinds of situations do have an attendant humor, at least when we're not right in the midst of them). Every family tends to have its own customs and norms, its own take on ethics, etiquette, politics, religion and so on. Naturally, when we try to merge families through marriages, uncomfortable, often embarrassing, and frequently tense situations abound. Aside from the humor, this is the crux of Meet the Fockers.

Another important subtext that occurs in various guises through the film (and for which the potential was there in Meet the Parents even if it wasn't capitalized on in quite the same way) is opening up to "free", honest expression of one's thoughts, feelings and desires versus showing a "proper" public face. This is particularly amusing and poignant in the case of Jack, whose job involved obtaining honest expression, but who is the strongest case of putting on a false public face--to an extent that he's bought into the persona himself. In a way, Roach and crew are suggesting that if we can really reach that ideal self-expression, maybe those family mergers, and even other kinds of cultural encounters (such as the Fockers' run-in with the police) could proceed more smoothly.

So it's not so important whether Meet the Fockers is as funny as Meet the Parents. Roach isn't just trying to make you laugh, even though he does so frequently. Despite all the comments in others' reviews about sex-oriented humor (how could you not expect that in a film with a title like this?), or general "low-brow" humor, the comic situations here are more sophisticated in many ways than a typical "outrageous" comedy. That means that you're not going to laugh out loud, with tears streaming down your face, as often as you're going to be sitting there with a big smile on your face watching scenarios such as Bernie trying, and mostly succeeding, to hold on to his hippie ideals no matter what the short term costs. This is more a humor of slightly exaggerated but realistic folly, played fabulously by a stellar cast.