Post by Harkovast on Aug 16, 2015 21:35:30 GMT
Meet the Fockers
Making fun of bad comedy is always a terrible idea, because you are taking a joke that didn't work and then explaining it, thus ruining it even more.
But what the hell! Let's do it anyway!
Meet the Parents was a reasonably amusing comedy where Ben Stiller tries and fails to impress his super scary, ex-CIA father in law played by Robert De Niro and hijinks ensue.
The set up for the sequel is actually kind of clever. We now meet Ben Stiller's parents (the Focker family, hence the title...see? It's all coming together now.) They are really left wing, free loving hippy types, who will clash with the ultra conservative, macho, traditional Robert De Niro.
Now what's really interesting about this movie is how it takes this reasonably interesting set up and proceeds to fuck it up entirely. It's failing, but failing in really odd ways.
Now the comedy and story here should be driven by two things.
1) The characters different personalities and how they clash.
and
2) The tension over whether the wedding will go ahead okay with so many whacky things happening.
Let's look at number 1 first.
Right off the bat there is a weird concept where De Niro explains that he has made a mould of his daughter's breast so that he can make a harness with a fake boob that he can use to breastfeed his grand kid himself. This isn't the daughter that is getting married to Stiller, this is some second daughter we never see. The kid is only present to set up a couple of comedy bits, including this stupidity with the fake boob.
Now you might be thinking "I thought De Niro was the conservative, macho parent, not the hippy free loving one." and you would be right.
This is a guy so conservative he mocked Ben Stiller in the first film for being a nurse, which he considered a woman's job. But having a false breast that you use to feed a baby...that's okay with this guy. He's actively proud to be doing this.
Let me rewrite this right now.
Ben Stiller's hippy dad takes the baby and De Niro gets a comedy horrified look when Stiller's dad starts breast feeding him. Then he makes some comment about "No wonder you grew up to be a nurse, Focker!"
I just improved their script and I didn't even get paid! I'm in the wrong line of work!
The film starts to struggle because it tries to exactly reproduce the comedy of the first film (ie Ben Stiller reacting to his outrageous in-laws' behaviour while trying not to offend) rather than forging its own path.
This leads to odd situations where the super liberal behaviour of his parents seems to shock him. They make a shrine to his non achievements as a child (6th place medals, that kind of thing), they talk way too openly about sex, etc, and he seems horrified. Now these folks are embarrassing, but doesn't he know them? He seems astounded by their behaviour when it's literally what he grew up with.
In another scene, he expresses that he doesn't feel he can keep secrets from De Niro (super suspicious ex-CIA man) and his fiancée brushes this off as silly.
Since we the audience know that De Niro is literally the least trusting psycho on planet earth...why does Stiller know his father in law better than she does? She acts like she's never met her father, Stiller acts like he doesn't know his father...for a comedy about clashing characters, this show seems to have no idea who any of these people are!
Now the situation should be sort of reversed from the first film, where now it should be De Niro and his daughter being shocked by the crazy family they've just met.
De Niro continues to do what he did in the last film (suspecting Stiller of lying, showing their relationship has not evolved even slightly, making the first film pointless) while his daughter...well she kind of struggles to be anything.
I honestly can't tell you a single thing about this woman.
I would say she likes Stiller, but she seems to side against him whenever De Niro is there...but sides against De Niro when Stiller leaves.
She doesn't seem especially upset by the overly liberal parenting of Stiller's folks...I don't know if she has any real opinion of them at all...or really any opinions of any kind.
The film can't have her reacting to things because she doesn't have any reactions to anything. I honestly think they could have switched actress part way through and I wouldn't have noticed.
This leads into the second core problem with the movie.
The plot here is based around whether or not the wedding will go ahead, but one of the people involved in this wedding has no discernable personality or opinions, and doesn't seem to have any affection for her future husband. The two of them share so little chemistry that my wife (who was not entirely paying attention) was surprised when I mentioned that those two characters were a couple. Aside from the people in the film repeating it over and over, we see nothing on screen to make us think these two should be together.
So the fundamental conflict and tension of the movie is something we don't care about and only remember when the characters mention it.
With no effective drive to the plot and characters with variable personalities, the writers seem to start throwing random crap at the screen to try to add some laughs. This leads to strange additions to the movie, none of which go anywhere. The weird fake breast thing on De Niro is the first example of this, as is the grandkid who doesn't have any business being at the wedding without his mother or father.
Another is a young man who appears to be a young, Hispanic Ben Stiller, who it is suggested might be Stiller's secret love child.
Now the kid's Stiller impression and look are so spot on that it gives us one of the first genuine laughs of the movie, but again this idea doesn't really go anywhere.
De Niro gives Stiller a truth serum by injecting him in the neck with it. This causes him to go out in front of a crowd and reveal his true opinions about everything while also forgetting that he was injected in the neck. Apparently the CIA now has truth serum made from literal magic potions that just do whatever you want.
The magic truth juice causes Stiller to announce that young Hispanic Ben Stiller is actually his son. Later we learn that this is not the case and the similarity is a coincidence (I guess the mum just really liked men who are like Ben Stiller...the poor, deluded, mad woman that she must have been!) So why did Stiller confess to something he didn't think was true? The Hispanic Ben Stiller is never in the movie again, even after we learn the truth, so this whole plot line fizzles out to nothing.
Very near the end of the movie, Stiller and his Dad get stopped by a traffic cop, who provides the absolute nadir of the movie. The cop is played as such a ridiculous, broad stereotype of an over zealous, southern traffic cop that it jars with the rest of the movie like screeching brakes. He over pronounces "Stay in your vee-hick-cul!" over and over in an increasingly loud voice, as if this catch phrase will some how get funny with more repetition and more volume. Introducing a villain in the third act of a story is bad writing at the best of times, but this guy's performance is just embarrassing to watch.
De Niro has realised he was wrong about Stiller at this point (just like in the first movie, because we are forbidden by law to allow any of these relationships to evolve in any way) and so comes driving back and sees Stiller and his Dad being arrested.
I assumed this would give him a chance to rescue them, either using his CIA connections to get them off the hook or using his super combat training to beat up the over zealous crazy cop. Instead the cop yells even louder, over pronounces "vehicle" ever more egregiously and then taser's De Niro.
The two dads and Stiller end up in prison together, where they talk a bit and resolve everything so everyone is friends now, and then Stiller's dad says he knows the judge and they all get let out.
So remember, Americans, in your country, traffic cops are allowed to attack people and pulls weapons on them while screaming semi coherent gibberish, but judges can get you out of prison if they like you. Good to know. None of this makes any sense, but also makes no sense in terms of story structure and none of it is at all funny.
I don't even know why I should care that these assholes reconcile. De Niro is such a lunatic by this point, just have the wedding without him. He literally stuck a needle in Stiller's neck and drugged him! That seems a little worse than "oh yeah, sorry about that." can fix! I don't care about the wedding and I care even less which of these poorly written characters does or doesn't attend.
Stiller makes an intentionally insightful line where he says that the day isn't about the two dads, its about him and his fiancée...the fiancée being the only one we just mentioned who isn't present. The day SHOULD be about her! But she isn't anywhere to be seen! Not that it would matter if she was since she is such a non entity, but it would at least show some small slice of self awareness.
So the wedding goes ahead, and the fiancée's ex-boyfriend shows up to do the wedding, played by Stiller's mate Owen Wilson. He was in the first film so gets this really weird cameo at the end. This is called the 'Adam Sandler effect', where comedy movies start to feel like embezzlement scams where you use them to give your less successful friends work, but I suppose to have to applaud the loyalty.
If you know Ben Stiller and are ever down on your luck because you just aren't that big a star, he will be there for you.
This movie is a mess, but it's noteworthy because it could have worked.
The premise is genuinely interesting, and a clever way to follow on from the first film.
We should have seen Stiller trying to keep the peace between the two families, rather than trying to win over De Niro AGAIN. He already did that! If anything him and De Niro should have some sort of bond by now, even if its only a grudging one.
The fiancée needed to be an actual character who could respond to things, possibly being appalled by these hippy parents, thus putting the relationship in danger.
Unfortunately, she is played by a relatively minor actress (by far the least famous of the people playing main characters) so her role is reduced as much as possible to the point that film didn't need to have a wedding at all.
You could use largely the same script and just change "in-laws" to "Wacky clients I have to get to sign the big contract to save the firm" and it would pretty much play out the same way.
A wasted opportunity ...though the credits bit where Stiller seems to admit he was smoking pot and neglecting the baby and then reveals he knows De Niro is watching was kinda funny...yes that does mean there were literally two funny bits in the entire movie.
And supposedly the third movie "Little Fockers" is even worse.
Fock me.
Making fun of bad comedy is always a terrible idea, because you are taking a joke that didn't work and then explaining it, thus ruining it even more.
But what the hell! Let's do it anyway!
Meet the Parents was a reasonably amusing comedy where Ben Stiller tries and fails to impress his super scary, ex-CIA father in law played by Robert De Niro and hijinks ensue.
The set up for the sequel is actually kind of clever. We now meet Ben Stiller's parents (the Focker family, hence the title...see? It's all coming together now.) They are really left wing, free loving hippy types, who will clash with the ultra conservative, macho, traditional Robert De Niro.
Now what's really interesting about this movie is how it takes this reasonably interesting set up and proceeds to fuck it up entirely. It's failing, but failing in really odd ways.
Now the comedy and story here should be driven by two things.
1) The characters different personalities and how they clash.
and
2) The tension over whether the wedding will go ahead okay with so many whacky things happening.
Let's look at number 1 first.
Right off the bat there is a weird concept where De Niro explains that he has made a mould of his daughter's breast so that he can make a harness with a fake boob that he can use to breastfeed his grand kid himself. This isn't the daughter that is getting married to Stiller, this is some second daughter we never see. The kid is only present to set up a couple of comedy bits, including this stupidity with the fake boob.
Now you might be thinking "I thought De Niro was the conservative, macho parent, not the hippy free loving one." and you would be right.
This is a guy so conservative he mocked Ben Stiller in the first film for being a nurse, which he considered a woman's job. But having a false breast that you use to feed a baby...that's okay with this guy. He's actively proud to be doing this.
Let me rewrite this right now.
Ben Stiller's hippy dad takes the baby and De Niro gets a comedy horrified look when Stiller's dad starts breast feeding him. Then he makes some comment about "No wonder you grew up to be a nurse, Focker!"
I just improved their script and I didn't even get paid! I'm in the wrong line of work!
The film starts to struggle because it tries to exactly reproduce the comedy of the first film (ie Ben Stiller reacting to his outrageous in-laws' behaviour while trying not to offend) rather than forging its own path.
This leads to odd situations where the super liberal behaviour of his parents seems to shock him. They make a shrine to his non achievements as a child (6th place medals, that kind of thing), they talk way too openly about sex, etc, and he seems horrified. Now these folks are embarrassing, but doesn't he know them? He seems astounded by their behaviour when it's literally what he grew up with.
In another scene, he expresses that he doesn't feel he can keep secrets from De Niro (super suspicious ex-CIA man) and his fiancée brushes this off as silly.
Since we the audience know that De Niro is literally the least trusting psycho on planet earth...why does Stiller know his father in law better than she does? She acts like she's never met her father, Stiller acts like he doesn't know his father...for a comedy about clashing characters, this show seems to have no idea who any of these people are!
Now the situation should be sort of reversed from the first film, where now it should be De Niro and his daughter being shocked by the crazy family they've just met.
De Niro continues to do what he did in the last film (suspecting Stiller of lying, showing their relationship has not evolved even slightly, making the first film pointless) while his daughter...well she kind of struggles to be anything.
I honestly can't tell you a single thing about this woman.
I would say she likes Stiller, but she seems to side against him whenever De Niro is there...but sides against De Niro when Stiller leaves.
She doesn't seem especially upset by the overly liberal parenting of Stiller's folks...I don't know if she has any real opinion of them at all...or really any opinions of any kind.
The film can't have her reacting to things because she doesn't have any reactions to anything. I honestly think they could have switched actress part way through and I wouldn't have noticed.
This leads into the second core problem with the movie.
The plot here is based around whether or not the wedding will go ahead, but one of the people involved in this wedding has no discernable personality or opinions, and doesn't seem to have any affection for her future husband. The two of them share so little chemistry that my wife (who was not entirely paying attention) was surprised when I mentioned that those two characters were a couple. Aside from the people in the film repeating it over and over, we see nothing on screen to make us think these two should be together.
So the fundamental conflict and tension of the movie is something we don't care about and only remember when the characters mention it.
With no effective drive to the plot and characters with variable personalities, the writers seem to start throwing random crap at the screen to try to add some laughs. This leads to strange additions to the movie, none of which go anywhere. The weird fake breast thing on De Niro is the first example of this, as is the grandkid who doesn't have any business being at the wedding without his mother or father.
Another is a young man who appears to be a young, Hispanic Ben Stiller, who it is suggested might be Stiller's secret love child.
Now the kid's Stiller impression and look are so spot on that it gives us one of the first genuine laughs of the movie, but again this idea doesn't really go anywhere.
De Niro gives Stiller a truth serum by injecting him in the neck with it. This causes him to go out in front of a crowd and reveal his true opinions about everything while also forgetting that he was injected in the neck. Apparently the CIA now has truth serum made from literal magic potions that just do whatever you want.
The magic truth juice causes Stiller to announce that young Hispanic Ben Stiller is actually his son. Later we learn that this is not the case and the similarity is a coincidence (I guess the mum just really liked men who are like Ben Stiller...the poor, deluded, mad woman that she must have been!) So why did Stiller confess to something he didn't think was true? The Hispanic Ben Stiller is never in the movie again, even after we learn the truth, so this whole plot line fizzles out to nothing.
Very near the end of the movie, Stiller and his Dad get stopped by a traffic cop, who provides the absolute nadir of the movie. The cop is played as such a ridiculous, broad stereotype of an over zealous, southern traffic cop that it jars with the rest of the movie like screeching brakes. He over pronounces "Stay in your vee-hick-cul!" over and over in an increasingly loud voice, as if this catch phrase will some how get funny with more repetition and more volume. Introducing a villain in the third act of a story is bad writing at the best of times, but this guy's performance is just embarrassing to watch.
De Niro has realised he was wrong about Stiller at this point (just like in the first movie, because we are forbidden by law to allow any of these relationships to evolve in any way) and so comes driving back and sees Stiller and his Dad being arrested.
I assumed this would give him a chance to rescue them, either using his CIA connections to get them off the hook or using his super combat training to beat up the over zealous crazy cop. Instead the cop yells even louder, over pronounces "vehicle" ever more egregiously and then taser's De Niro.
The two dads and Stiller end up in prison together, where they talk a bit and resolve everything so everyone is friends now, and then Stiller's dad says he knows the judge and they all get let out.
So remember, Americans, in your country, traffic cops are allowed to attack people and pulls weapons on them while screaming semi coherent gibberish, but judges can get you out of prison if they like you. Good to know. None of this makes any sense, but also makes no sense in terms of story structure and none of it is at all funny.
I don't even know why I should care that these assholes reconcile. De Niro is such a lunatic by this point, just have the wedding without him. He literally stuck a needle in Stiller's neck and drugged him! That seems a little worse than "oh yeah, sorry about that." can fix! I don't care about the wedding and I care even less which of these poorly written characters does or doesn't attend.
Stiller makes an intentionally insightful line where he says that the day isn't about the two dads, its about him and his fiancée...the fiancée being the only one we just mentioned who isn't present. The day SHOULD be about her! But she isn't anywhere to be seen! Not that it would matter if she was since she is such a non entity, but it would at least show some small slice of self awareness.
So the wedding goes ahead, and the fiancée's ex-boyfriend shows up to do the wedding, played by Stiller's mate Owen Wilson. He was in the first film so gets this really weird cameo at the end. This is called the 'Adam Sandler effect', where comedy movies start to feel like embezzlement scams where you use them to give your less successful friends work, but I suppose to have to applaud the loyalty.
If you know Ben Stiller and are ever down on your luck because you just aren't that big a star, he will be there for you.
This movie is a mess, but it's noteworthy because it could have worked.
The premise is genuinely interesting, and a clever way to follow on from the first film.
We should have seen Stiller trying to keep the peace between the two families, rather than trying to win over De Niro AGAIN. He already did that! If anything him and De Niro should have some sort of bond by now, even if its only a grudging one.
The fiancée needed to be an actual character who could respond to things, possibly being appalled by these hippy parents, thus putting the relationship in danger.
Unfortunately, she is played by a relatively minor actress (by far the least famous of the people playing main characters) so her role is reduced as much as possible to the point that film didn't need to have a wedding at all.
You could use largely the same script and just change "in-laws" to "Wacky clients I have to get to sign the big contract to save the firm" and it would pretty much play out the same way.
A wasted opportunity ...though the credits bit where Stiller seems to admit he was smoking pot and neglecting the baby and then reveals he knows De Niro is watching was kinda funny...yes that does mean there were literally two funny bits in the entire movie.
And supposedly the third movie "Little Fockers" is even worse.
Fock me.