Hey folks, Harry here with a look at MEET THE FOCKERS - a flick the world demanded be made. Yes, we were going to burn the world had it not come about. Beaten DeNiro till he looked like something out of an old Black & White Scorsese flick! It'd been brutal, so cruel if MEET THE FOCKERS had never been made, because... What does happen when they MEET THE FOCKERS, wasn't that the single driving thought of each and everyone of us the second we finished endur... I mean enjoying the first film? Absolutely... and now... here's Malcolm Eggs to tell us, it is what it's cracked up to be!
What's up, Harry?
I had a big decision to make earlier tonight. Should I take a trip to the movie theaters to make good on some free passes that I picked up? Or should I stay at home at watch Lost? (Sure, I have TiVo, but I’d rather start watching it at 8:12pm, when I can skip through the commercials and still end it when my friends have finished.) But I went to the theaters to see Meet The Fockers. It was a risk. A gamble. And now I’m going to take another gamble. I’m going to risk the onslaught of paranoia-p! rone TalkBackers to actually give it a good review.
Fun. That’s it. That’s really the bottom line. I had a lot of fun watching the movie.
Maybe I was drugged. Maybe I was kidnapped and hypnotized. Or maybe, just maybe, it was a good movie. I mean really, lets look at the people involved. Robert DeNiro – genius. Dustin Hoffman – pure genius. Ben Stiller – inconsistent, but still funny (for a little while longer). Barbara Streisand – uhhh, she’s not such an annoying bitch. Jay Roach – good, pretty consistently funny director (even though the last two Austin Powers movies didn’t do much for me).
So before I wrote this review I saw that some other guy wrote in and he told about some of the comedy bits throughout the movie (which didn’t seem to leave a good impression on you). But it actually is funny. And I’ll take a different approach, I thought I’d comment on WHY I think it was all funny.
I think the best way to put it is: familiarity. That’s not to say that this movie isn’t original – it IS (even though it SEEMS like it could be a remake of a remake of a remake). But it takes the best parts of the characters of Meet The Parents and fulfills the promise of that movie. It’s kinda like your family’s inside jokes… whether they be straightforward jokes or memories of a shitty roadtrip you took years ago… those jokes are funny because you experienced them with other people you love (or loathe – depending on your family’s set-up)… and sharing your relatives’ relative reactions makes it all pretty great. That’s what’s happening here. I felt like I knew these people. Between the characters from the first movie and the new ones introduced here, they are truly bizarro versions of people I know. And watching them go through the situations that they do, I found myself laughing because it was like watching my friends and family go through stuff that we’ll all eventually laugh about later.
WHAT WORKED:
The Actors. Every single one of them (with the exception of the usually entertaining Tim Blake Nelson).
The chemistry between the actors.
The writing.
The return of Owen Wilson.
The smartest baby on-screen… with the best single-word vocabulary.
The second-best [completely natural] fart moment this year (behind last night’s episode of Scrubs).
WHAT DIDN’T WORK:
Some of the joke-repeats.
Streisand’s repetition of the words, “Nicht git.” Too obvious an attempt at giving the audience a stupid catchphrase, like Jim Carrey’s “It’s gooood!” in Bruce Almighty.
Some of the conventional wrapping-up of issues. It’s a sweet movie, I guess that’s what sweet movies do.
Ran a little long.
I really wish that Randy Newman would mix it up a bit. Every song he sings sounds exactly the same.
Mostly good stuff all around. Pretty inspired characterizations. Pretty darned funny.
And to wrap it up: thank god for TiVo. I got to see the movie AND the polar bear.
-Malcolm Eggs
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