Meet the Fockers

Horny old people! Horny house pets!! Horny babies!!! No seriously, a focking horny, big booby lovin' baby. These are among the many low-brow farcical gags not-so-cleverly delivered throughout the course of this underwhelming and slightly offensive sequel to the critically/financially successful Meet the Parents. Lovers of bathroom humor, Barbara Streisand, and Wandy Newman (not a typo) don't despair, you get plenty of that as well.

Before continuing this scathing review, I'm going to state -- for the record -- that I enjoyed Meet the Parents. It was cute, breezy, and charming. In other words, it was the complete antithesis of Meet the Fockers. This film is about as cute as a steaming pile of shit.

Strike one. Whether or not it made sense, I guess that little focking dog JUST HAD TO get flushed down the toilet. And, naturally, the baby had to get doused with blue toilet water (hardy-har-harrr). Kudos for not having any flying crap. I totally thought they were gonna go there. I wouldn't have put it past Jay Roach. He seems to think that, with each sequel, one needs to increase the amount of scatological humor, no matter the cost.

Strike two. And now for the main attraction, the most crass and depraved joke of them all, Barbara Streisand! Wait, I'm not done, although I see your point. Here it goes: Barbara Streisand...with whipped cream smeared all over her breasts. Dude, I'm so there. All and all, Streisand walks and talks like a South Park parody of herself. She is Mecha-Streisand incarnate.

Strike three. Ben Stiller's/Gaylord Focker's -- the whole Gaylord Focker thing has become as incessant and annoying as "YEAH BABY!," another worn-out Jay Roach franchise catchphrase -- computer animated, half-circumcised foreskin. Oh, and the CGI foreskin bounces off walls and into a bowl of Focker fondue (I hope someone eats it, DERP!).

AND YOU ARE OUT. This movie is plain bad any way you slice it. What makes it so much worse is having a ton of Hollywood players (De Niro, Hoffman, Stiller and his CGI foreskin, Owen Wilson, even Mecha-Streisand) completely squandered on bad fart and tit jokes. And did I mention the flying CGI foreskin.

This may be a rude, crude review, but I'm just trying to stick with the completely tactless tone that the film employs, complete with horny toddlers/geriatrics/pets, fart and poop jokes. Oh yeah, Mecha-Streisand's whipped cream breasts do have some direct competition in the DVD's poorly integrated extended sequences. That's right, we have the (unfortunate) option of watching the film with about ten extra unfunny sequences.

And I'm sorry, what is with the endless cutting to the prodigal baby? I get it. He's cute and smart and everyone else is ugly and stupid. But the reaction shots are endless: there must be 100. Each reaction shot looks like the same recycled reaction but with a new backdrop. Can anyone say time-filler? As if the film needed filler (it lasts almost 2 hours).

Ok, enough movie bashing, time for DVD bashing. The transfer is decent at best. The film is plagued by highly noticeable edge-enhancement (halos around everything). Luckily, it does improve as the film progresses and the Floridian color palette looks nice and bright. Audio is fine with clear and crisp dialogue. The 5.1 mix serves the film well.

I would suggest skipping the poorly integrated and unfunny extended sequences, unless you really want to see some CGI foreskin fly across the dinner table in slow-mo (okay, that's the last foreskin reference -- sorry everyone).

We also get to see the extended sequences as deleted scenes, isolated from the film, as well as a few that didn't make the final cut at all. There's also 10 minutes of bloopers that are far funnier than the actual film.

There's a feature length commentary with director Jay Roach and editor/co-producer Jon Poll. Early in the commentary, the two suggest you skip their track and just watch the film again. Hmmmm, no thanks. Actually, their commentary is pretty adequate, with plenty of friendly banter and relatively informative production stories.

There are a few fluffy but relatively fun featurettes. There's one on directing the uber-cute baby (played by twins), another on the amazing life of the cat who plays Jinx, and also a behind-the-scenes chat with the prop-master who created De Niro's fake lactating bosom. Thank God for that.

Rounding out the DVD is a creepy Matt Lauer interview with the cast of Meet the Fockers and, finally, Focker family portraits with Hoffman, Mecha-Streisand, and Stiller, where they discuss their family's nutty dynamic.

If you enjoyed the first film, I guess you may want to give this a shot. With that in mind, I'd recommend that you give it a rent. If it weren't for all the underused talent, I wouldn't have disliked the film as much as I ultimately did but it's just flat-out depressing to watch De Niro and Hoffman (mainly De Niro) make painfully unsuccessful attempts at poopy humor comedy. -- Neil Karassik