Review by Doug Cooper
Stars Ben Stiller, Robert DeNiro, Owen Wilson, Jessica Alba, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner,
Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Harvey Keitel | Written by John Hamburg & Larry Stuckey
UK certification 12 | UK RRP £27.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 94 minutes | Directed by Paul Weitz
This sorry follow up to Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers is relentlessy awful, a dire comedy devoid of wit and intelligence, though some of the wince inducing humour will doubtless please undemanding multiplex audiences. Stiller cutting his finger and bleeding over DeNiro when carving a turkey, his small boy vomiting over him, DeNiro sporting an unwanted erection which Stiller has to remedy with a painful injection are but three choice moments from this steaming turd of a picture.
There's no plot to speak of. Shapeless scenes take place that don't build any narrative momentum, We're whisked from Stiller being asked by lovestruck Alba to speak at a medical convention to DeNiro demanding that he become head of the family when he departs due to ill health. The two men visit Laura Dern's centre for kids, they argue and fight. Owen Wilson is the rich playboy who gives Stiller and Polo's twins a lavish birthday party. Complications ensue while Hoffman and Streisand are shoehorned in for a few brief scenes that serve no discernible point or purpose.
All the cast are there to simply take the money and run. This piece of crap will doubtless make millions but to have this one on their resumes is a severe embarrassment Sorry this review is so brief but it isn't the kind of bad film that one can take the piss out of and have fun with. It's been made with such cynicism and with no respect for the paying public that one can only shake one's head and say "Screw you" to the filmmakers. An atrocious effort that should be avoided at all costs.
EXTRAS ★★½ The 2-disc Double Play has both Blu-ray and DVD. The Blu-ray features two alternate openings and an alternate ending; deleted scenes; a gag reel; a making-of featurette; Bout Time, a featurette about the fight scene; cast interviews; and The Focker Foot Locker.