As any All Blogs go to Heaven reader will know, Meet the Fockers was a much anticipated flick. I have been anticipating it since the summer. Well, Kristen and I went out to see it last night at the AMC 30 in Sterling Heights.
First of all, it was obviously Christmas vacation down in the the Utica/Sterling Heights area. There were more high school students in that place than at a football game. I keep thinking that this is the audience I need to be reaching. But that’s another story.
From an adult perspective, this movie provided everything I was expecting. Lots of references to the previous movie, lots of one liners, lots of new humor, and a few uncomfortable “parent” moments. It was funny. I laughed a lot. I slapped me knee laughing more than a few times. Mrs. Focker, played by Barbara Streisand, was a great character. She played a sex therapist for old people. When we first meet her she is instructing an entire cast of elderly folks about bumpin’ and grindin’… That scene alone is worth a couple of bucks. The comedy just rolls along with the hidden themes of pre-marital pregnancy and pretend chastity throughout.
Unfortunately, besides loads of cheap laughs the story is completely unbelievable. I had few moments, unlike it’s prequel, where I sat on my hands and went… “Oh no, oh now.” I never once really believed that Gaylord’s parents were Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman. While they played their parts well, they just didn’t fit as Ben Stiller’s family. On the other side of the coin, too much had changed with the Byrn family and all the chemistry was gone.
So, while I give the movie a “thumbs up” just know that it’s for cheap laughs and a mindless comedy. It’s not a brilliant as before but it is good enough to see.
As a youth pastor, I can’t recommend the movie to those under 18. With the whole sex therapist subplot there is simply too much discussion about penis’s and vaginas. (Not that high schoolers don’t have these… But do a bunch a virgins really need to see and hear about them and see how others pleasure themselves if they aren’t supposed to be doing that?) There were many scenes of adult humor, many many times of nearly exposed breasts…. On and on. I just couldn’t recommend it. I have no idea how they maintained a PG-13 rating on the film. You would think teaching a 2 year old to say, “ash-hole” would render an R right there, but definitely seeing Dustin Hoffman lick whip cream off of Barbara Streisand’s cleavage should put it over the top!
Yeah for parents, nay for students. If you take your middle schooler or below I’ll punch you right in the face!
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