Meet the Fockers

This sequel's title indicates the content: smutty, silly and liable to make you smirk despite yourself.

Fans of the first will find some amusement in familiarity, but with such a comically able cast this is a missed opportunity.

Meet The Fockers has assembled a historic, once-in-a-lifetime cast, then stranded them in the laziest, most mercenary kind of sequel imaginable. It's like the 1927 Yankees taking on the Special Olympics softball team.

Very often vulgar and tasteless, and though there are some unexpected bursts of humor and even charm in the proceedings, it's light years away from Chekhov.

Although not as disarmingly funny the second time around, inspired casting means that, unlike most in-laws, the Fockers don't outstay their welcome.

The abundance of talent gathered for Meet the Fockers is sadly shortchanged by the unimaginative script and directorial laissez faire.

Even though it stretches too thin sometimes, "Meet the Fockers" is a sequel that works at levels similar to and different from its source and another comedic meeting you won’t mind taking.


[The sequel] shamelessly carbon copies jokes and the plot structure from its predecessor.

It's an unimaginative comedy, with occasionally effective scenes interspersed with flat retreads of the original's jokes.

The humor stays approximately the same, largely thanks to the screenwriters (Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg) returning for this second chapter.