Why be harsh on Little Fockers? It’s better than its predecessor Meet the Fockers. It’s better than Gulliver’s Travels or Vampires Suck, our dubious multiplex alternatives for the holiday season. Owen Wilson is funny in it, especially when he talks about “our dear friend the Buddha”. Jessica Alba – of all people – is funny in it, or at least perky. If you had to watch it with a gun to your head, you’d watch it and find it pretty painless. But it’s unnecessary. It’s cynical. And it’s depressing.
Partly it’s depressing because it’s so cynical. These are one-dimensional characters, but Meet the Fockers became the most successful non-cartoon comedy of all time (I know, I know…) so a threequel was called for. Little Fockers doesn’t add anything new, however. The characters are still one-dimensional, in fact they’re more one-dimensional. Ben Stiller (as Gaylord ‘Greg’ Focker) was more interesting in Meet the Parents – the first, and best, Fockers movie – because he tried too hard to impress his prospective father-in-law, and became the architect of his own misfortunes. There’s a bit of that here, when Greg – stirred by the prospect of becoming “the Godfocker” – starts acting bossy and obnoxious, but he’s mostly just a bland Everyman with an even blander wife. As for Jack, the father-in-law from hell … well, let’s just say Robert De Niro is a limited comedian whose grumpy-old-man schtick depends on looking permanently constipated.
At least Jack has an element of self-loathing (he’s very repressed), which makes him semi-sympathetic. Greg’s parents – played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand – are just annoying, because they’re not only thoughtless and self-centred but think that makes them better and happier than everyone else (the fact that this horrid couple are mostly pushed to the margins is mostly why the threequel is slightly better than the sequel). Dustin also voices the film’s fascination with “the things that make us human”, i.e. bodily fluids and odours – there are jokes about farts and vomit – though of course that’s exactly wrong: our bodily functions are what make us animals, everything else is what makes us human. That’s another reason why the film is depressing.
Little Fockers is a case of competing schticks, throwing everything in the mix and hoping it’ll work. The film tries hard to sell the Fockers and their friends as much-beloved characters we’ve been waiting years to see again – people are forever greeting each other like long-lost brothers – but only Wilson really scores, his stoned-surfer cool making it increasingly hilarious that Kevin (Greg’s rival) has such an impressive CV, from running an investment group to volunteering in a soup kitchen (did we mention he’s an expert on Eastern medicine?). Laura Dern does well in a small role as a snooty headmistress and Jessica Alba, as already mentioned, is a lively presence as a drugs-rep called ‘Andi Garcia’, even surviving a scene where she and Greg bond over a patient’s anus (it’s “like a blossoming lotus”) while administering an enema. Elsewhere, the jokes get increasingly desperate, with Greg and Jack being mistaken for a gay couple among other unlikely japes – though the bit where Greg administers a shot of adrenaline to his father-in-law’s Viagra-engorged member (!) is tasteless enough to be actually memorable.
So the film goes on, through a busy, noisy climax with lots of things happening at once – Greg and Jack getting in a fist-fight, Greg’s mum snogging Kevin, Jack’s dog eating Greg’s son’s pet lizard – to the closing credits punctuated with all the ‘famous’ lines from the franchise (“I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?”). At least the titular kids stay on the sidelines, because if there’s one thing this franchise doesn’t need it’s cute-kid antics on top of everything else – but the ending is deeply depressing, not just promising a fourth film but setting out a premise where both sets of parents will be living just down the block from Greg and his family, doubtless including the kids, dog and lizard and spiced with occasional visits from Kevin, the headmistress and Andi Garcia. Oh, fock.
