The Third Time Doesn't Charm Much With Little Fockers

I got home from a long trip the other day, and yesterday a friend of mine called me up to welcome me back and see if I wanted to go to the movies. We have two major movie theaters here in town, one of which is a dollar theater. The nice thing about the dollar theater, of course, is that it’s cheap. The not-so-nice part is that there are a lot fewer movies to choose from, so you’re more likely to end up watching something you’d rather not pay full price for anyway. Last night’s movie was Little Fockers, the third installment in the Meet the Parents series starring Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro.

It took me until last year to finally see Meet the Parents, and I never did see the sequel, Meet the Fockers. I didn’t really need to, though; this movie filled in the gaps sufficiently, which mainly involve Greg’s (Stiller) touchy-feely parents, stay-at-home dad Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) and television sex therapist Roz (Barbra Streisand). Greg is a nurse and a devoted family man. He’s a very decent guy, which begins to really hit home for his intimidating father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (DeNiro), after his other son-in-law cheats on his wife and takes off. A mild heart attack leaves this towering giant of a patriarch shaken and determined to see Greg carry on as family protector if anything should happen to him.

As in the first movie, Stiller and DeNiro have a great dynamic. Both of them are likable, but it’s easy to see how they drive each other crazy. While the first movie is very heavy on the slapstick and requires Greg to do several incredibly stupid things, in this movie, the disasters that happen really aren’t his fault. Some cringe-worthy moments do occur, but I felt like I was able to root for him more in this movie since he really is in the right most of the time, and he’s trying very hard to do well by his wife, his children and his in-laws. Meanwhile, Jack’s behavior in this movie is pretty reasonable as well. He’s looking out for his family too, and his limited point of view, along with a generally suspicious outlook, causes him to come to unfortunate but understandable conclusions. The wives, Dina Byrnes and Pam Focker (Blythe Danner and Teri Polo), have minimal roles, just playing it straight and supportive as their husbands lose their heads.

The plot of the movie is driven by miscommunication and one extremely over-the-top new character. The in-laws have come to town for the fifth birthday party of the Focker twins, precocious Samantha (Daisy Tahan) and dopey Henry (Colin Baiocchi). It’s not for a few days, though, so that’s plenty of time for trouble to develop. Most of that trouble involves Greg’s involvement with a perky drug rep named Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba). For some reason, she is really eager for him to be one to give a speech about her company’s new drug at an upcoming convention. And he could use the money, especially since he is in the process of trying to get his kids into an exclusive private school. But he doesn’t want Jack to know about the convention, since he wants him to think he is totally financially secure, and leaving the father-in-law out of the loop on this little detail leads to big problems later on. It doesn’t help, either, that Pam’s ex, guileless golden boy Kevin (Owen Wilson), returns to town just before the party after Greg’s advice about how to propose to his supermodel girlfriend backfires on him.

Basically, I like the main characters in the movie, except for Andi, who seems to ooze phoniness and spends the entire movie flinging herself relentlessly at a married man. I’m really not sure why. I kept looking for some sinister motivation, but it seems the only explanation for her behavior is that she has a mad crush on Greg and won’t let anything stand in the way of her having her way with him. While Greg thinks she’s a knockout, it’s a mark of his character that he is never tempted to give in to her advances. But that can’t stop her from putting him in a couple of very compromising positions. I found myself cringing most of the time when she was on screen, and her totally unprofessional behavior made me wonder how she managed to hang onto her job.

Aside from her, what really annoyed me about the movie was the gross-out humor. There’s the tedious tittering over Greg’s full name, with his birth name of Gaylord coming up several times at awkward moments, particularly with Prudence (Laura Dern), the spacey director of the school he wants his children to attend. There’s the fact that the drug he’s supposed to be hawking is basically Viagara for heart patients, so you can imagine the eye-rolling jokes there, especially the piercingly uncomfortable moment highlighted in the previews in which Greg must administer a shot to counteract the drug’s effects after Jack takes some on the sly. And given the profession of Greg’s mother, almost everything she says has some sort of sexual connotation, and that gets old fast. Finally, along with all the lewd humor, there are disgusting moments like Henry barfing all over his father or Greg taking a chunk out of his hand while carving a turkey, which, if I’m remembering right, pretty much happened in the first movie and was unpleasant enough then.

The first two movies did really well at the box office, and at this point the third movie just feels like the cast and writers trying to stretch the series out beyond its natural end point. The movie concludes in such a way that it seems to be baiting us for yet another sequel, and at this point I can’t help thinking it’s a little excessive. DeNiro and Stiller do make a great team, and Little Fockers has its moments of humor and sweetness. But I think this is a franchise that has run its course.

A Dizzying Cast of Characters Explores Love in Valentine's Day

I was supposed to be a Valentine’s Day baby. Instead, I arrived a couple of days early, which suits me fine, since I tend to have more enthusiasm for Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday I share, than for the holiday that hasn’t been too eventful for me since the end of the elementary school cardboard Valentine mailboxes. Still, I’ve never resented the holiday. I enjoy exchanging Valentines with my parents and a couple of friends, and at some point during the week, I usually make it out to the video store or the theater to catch a sappy movie. Last year, it was Valentine’s Day, a romantic comedy with an expansive cast of characters whose lives intersect on February 14 in, or on the way to, Los Angeles.

Two years ago saw the release of He’s Just Not That Into You, which had a similarly high number of characters to keep track of. Structurally, the two are fairly similar, but Valentine’s Day, directed by Garry Marshall, feels a lot less cynical, celebrating love both young and old and not restricting it to romance, either. While that is a major focus of the movie, it also lauds family relationships, mentorships and general kindness to friend and stranger alike. I found it refreshingly positive.

As with He’s Just Not That Into You, I found myself zeroing in on certain characters and zoning out on others, simply because there were so many. The main character is Reed Bennett, a puppy dog of a florist who absolutely loves Valentine’s Day and who is in an especially exuberant mood this year because his girlfriend has just accepted his marriage proposal. Ashton Kutcher plays Reed, and he surprised me in the role because usually, the mere presence of Kutcher in a movie might be enough to dissuade me from watching. I generally find him obnoxious, but here, he is thoroughly lovable, as is Jennifer Garner, who plays his childhood chum, elementary school teacher Julia Fitzpatrick – though that didn’t surprise me much, as she’s been one of my favorite actresses since her thoroughly endearing turn in 13 Going on 30.

Reed’s idyllic day is about to take a troubling turn. What everyone in the audience realizes long before he does is that his girlfriend is just not that into him – and furthermore, sweet-natured Julia is. But she has a romantic partner of her own, and he has a secret that could wreak havoc on her happiness. Aside from Reed and Julia, I was most interested in Hector Elizondo, always an actor I enjoy, as Edgar, a hopeless romantic still very much in love with his wife after decades of marriage and now ready to pass some wisdom on to his young grandson Edison (Bryce Robinson), who is determined to show the object of his affections just how much he cares. These four characters give us a strong sense of the differences between puppy love, adult romance and mature love that reflects a lifetime together.

Lots of other characters experience love in a variety of ways, too, and it’s fun to see how the different characters interconnect. At the same time, there’s little opportunity to really get to know most of the characters. The movie boasts a dizzying cast list full of familiar names: Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Taylor Swift, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Larry Miller, Kristen Schaal… There’s scarcely time to pick them out before we’re on to a new scene with new characters to keep track of, and it’s a constant guessing game to figure out what one storyline has to do with the others beyond the general theme.

Some of the situations in the movie are a bit on the risqué side, but the focus here is more often on love than lust, which I appreciated. The film’s biggest flaw is probably that it’s trying to do too much at once. Still, I was more touched than confused by the end of the movie, and while I wouldn't rank it among the best romantic comedies out there, Valentine’s Day makes for pretty enjoyable viewing and may just leave you with a better appreciation of the holiday that inspired it.

The Thing is the Thing that Makes Fantastic Four Worth Watching

At the outset of the summer, I had a list of several movies I wanted to see in the theater – most of which I still haven’t. The Fantastic Four was not on that list, but when my uncle issued an invitation for me to go see it with his family, I was happy to accept. I tend to be a bit leery of films inspired by comic books simply because they generally tend to be very destructive, but this did look to be one of the more family friendly of those adaptation, an impression that seemed to be confirmed when almost all the previews were for films rated G or PG. So I settled in with my jumbo popcorn and an open mind. As it turned out, I liked it quite a bit.

I don’t know anything about the source material, so I can’t comment on how faithful the film was in terms of character and plot elements. I was warned ahead of time by my brother that watching the movie meant putting up with Jessica Alba, a name I was unfamiliar with. “And what’s so wrong with Jessica Alba?” I inquired. “She was in Dark Angel,” Nathan muttered darkly. “And you watched Dark Angel?” I persisted. “No,” he replied. “So how do you know it was such a bad show?” I asked. “Because Jessica Alba was in it!” he concluded triumphantly while I shook my head and decided not too rely too heavily on his circular logic. She plays Sue Storm, who I couldn’t help but compare repeatedly to Trillian, probably because I had just seen Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a couple weeks before. She serves a similar purpose, with the protagonist, Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), having dated her in the past and now being forced to see her with another man. This man, incidentally, is Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), the former rival to whom Reed must turn for assistance in launching an experiment that could have earth-shatteringly positive consequences.

Joining them in this voyage are Johnny (Chris Evans), Sue’s hotshot younger brother, and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), Reed’s paternal friend. There is considerable interpersonal strain inherent in the formation of this group. Reed is jealous of Victor, who in turn is contemptuous of Reed. Sue is angry with Reed because of the way their relationship ended, and she isn’t especially thrilled by all the advances the suave Victor is making on her. Meanwhile, Ben is furious that his former employee Johnny is now his boss, and Johnny is more than happy to rub it in. The clashing personalities hardly make for an ideal situation, but when they return to Earth with an assortment of bizarre powers, it seems Sue, Johnny, Reed and Ben are going to have to learn how to live with one another.

Victor, meanwhile, remains on his own, his rage festering as he realizes that his business is tanking thanks to Reed’s little trip. Oddly enough, it never seems to occur to any members of the quartet, soon dubbed the Fantastic Four, that Victor might have acquired strange attributes as well. Their focus is on figuring out how to undo the changes that were made to their DNA. Ben is especially eager. His transformation made him clumsy and intimidating, a rock-like giant so alarming that his wife left him. Being branded with the humiliating nickname “the Thing” didn’t help. But the other three have more useful powers: invisibility for Sue, stretchiness for Reed, and the ability to burst into flames and fly for Johnny. The latter is especially fond of his newfound abilities and is in no hurry whatsoever to give them up.

I imagine The Incredibles was informed a bit by this comic, as the film reminded me a lot of that recent Disney / Pixar venture. The invisibility and stretchiness were a particularly powerful reminder. As for the characters, Ben was by far my favorite, a very sympathetic man who provided most of the film’s heart. Johnny was amusing, though if was shut up with him for days on end I suspect I would find him very obnoxious. Reed and Sue were likable enough; again, they mirrored the relationship between Arthur and Trillian in Hitchhiker’s Guide. For whatever reason, this romance seemed a bit more believable, but I still wasn’t all that impressed with that element of the storyline. Victor was an intriguing villain, arrogant and out for revenge but still someone I could feel sorry for at times.

Predictably, there was quite a bit of destruction in this film, though there were, happily, few casualties. In the end, it’s a pretty good film with plenty of action, done in such a way that it is appropriate for younger audiences. No doubt there will be a sequel, and when it comes I would not be adverse to seeing it.