Franchise’s Worst Entry Fails By Giving People Exactly What They Want

By Robert Scucci
| Updated 17 seconds ago

While I spend most of my time watching bargain-bin, straight-to-VHS trash that’s typically found streaming on Tubi, I’m not averse to the occasional rom-com that the whole family can enjoy. Meet the Parents (2000) came out when I was 12, and I fondly remember watching it in theaters with my parents and eventually getting some reps on it when it was added to our DVD collection. I had similar feelings about Meet the Fockers for the same exact reason. They’re the kind of comedies that border on awkward and raunchy, but you could have your girlfriend or a group of friends over, watch it with your boomer parents, and have a good laugh.

Here’s what’s strange about the Meet the Parents franchise, though: I have fond memories of the first two movies and the people I watched them with, but I actually had to undergo hypnosis (read: fire up Netflix) to remember what even happened in the third film, 2010’s Little Fockers. It’s a total nothingburger of a movie that doesn’t come close to capturing the charm and charisma of its predecessors.

I’ll approach the release of this year’s Focker-In-Law with guarded enthusiasm. If it’s anywhere close to the first two movies, I think it’ll fare well. If it’s more like the 2010 film, however, the franchise is as good as dead.

Two Near-Perfect Escalations

In Meet the Parents, Gaylord “Greg” Focker (Ben Stiller) is dealt the worst hand imaginable, making for a fantastic comedy of errors. He has to ask his girlfriend Pam’s (Teri Polo) father, Jack (Robert De Niro), for his blessing to marry her, only to find out that he’s a retired CIA agent with serious trust issues. To make matters worse, Pam’s ex-fiancé Kevin (Owen Wilson) is like the final boss of ex-lovers who are still adored by your partner’s family. It’s a total nightmare situation for Greg, who gets caught in one little white lie after another. It’s exactly what anybody would do in his situation, but it’s also what prompts Jack to keep him under heightened scrutiny in search of bigger, more life-ruining lies.

The main source of comedy in Meet the Parents comes from the walls of insecurity that both Greg and Jack have in spades, and how that has a hilariously adverse effect on their willingness and ability to communicate with one another when they both have the same exact goal in mind: making sure Pam is happy.

Meet the Fockers is a perfect continuation of the franchise that keeps things fresh by adding new characters. The wedding date is six months out and Greg and Jack are on friendlier terms, so the film has to pivot with its humor. This time, it’s sourced from the addition of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand’s Bernie and Roz Focker, Greg’s parents. Bernie and Roz are free spirits, warm, compassionate, and just a little too intrusive. When thrown into a room with Jack, who spent most of his adult life closing himself off from the people closest to him for the sake of national security, the clash of personalities alone is enough for some truly legendary moments.

The film adds depth to Greg’s character because we learn how he was raised and why he’s so reluctant to open up to his future in-laws. The fact that he loves his parents but is simultaneously embarrassed to death by them tells you everything you need to know.

There Is A Such Thing As Too Reliable

Which brings us to Little Fockers, a film that now has to work with the above-mentioned dynamics that have already demonstrated themselves to resonate with audiences. Bernie and Roz are reliably Bernie and Roz. Jack reliably reacts to how reliably Bernie and Roz act, and hilarity ensues (allegedly). Kevin reliably gets under Greg’s skin, while Pam reliably gets caught in the middle of this weird, one-sided love triangle.

Jack is reliably tight-lipped about some of his health issues, and Greg is reliably put in a tough spot because he needs to respect his father-in-law’s wishes for secrecy while withholding important information from the rest of the family. Jack is also reliably suspicious of Greg when he assumes he’s having an extramarital affair, and those suspicions reliably spiral to ridiculous proportions when Jack pursues every lead like a secret agent instead of just having a frank conversation with his son-in-law.

This flash flood of reliability is exactly why Little Fockers failed to resonate with audiences. Every setup and bit of wordplay feels borrowed from the previous films, to the point where Greg and Pam’s kids, Henry (Colin Baiocchi) and Samantha (Daisy Tahan), feel like an afterthought. It’s as if the studio was looking for a reason to justify bringing everybody back together, and the solution was, “Throw some kids in the mix.”

Having rewatched Little Fockers on Netflix for the first time since its initial theatrical release, I can safely say I waited 97 minutes for almost nothing to happen. I’m not even mad, and I was too underwhelmed by the film to feel disappointed. It’s just … nothing, which is an absolute shame because the first two films still hold up shockingly well.