After meeting both The Parents and The Fockers, here we are at round three of the epic battle between Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro). The first two movies were funny, but can this latest sequel live up to its predecessors?
Little Fockers involves parents, kids and the coming together of a family. The movie picks up with Greg juggling the demands of family with the stress of work, trying to raise two kids while maintaining a solid relationship with his wife. Sounds funny so far, right? After the setup, we finally see Jack come back into Greg's life, declaring that he wants to make Greg the patriarch of the family — the "Godfocker," yawn — as long as Greg can prove he can lead like Jack does. The rest of the movie is concerned with Jack and Greg dueling, DeNiro popping a woody, Jessica Alba being kinda annoying and plenty of "Focker" jokes.
I loved the first movie; and why not? There's plenty to love. The second movie added two fun characters (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Stiller's eccentric parents) to the same formula, but was still funny. Now we're back at the well for a third time, only this time the filmmakers have thrown in some kids. But things get stale quickly when you keep watering down the same formula with extra characters and more of the same jokes. For me, it felt like when I hear a friend repeat the same joke over and over again. The first couple times you laugh, but by the third time you just want to stick a pencil in his eye.
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2010.