Cookie cutter molds this ‘meet’

Meet the Fockers (2004)
Universal Pictures presents a Jay Roach film, starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. Written by John Hamburg, James Herzfeld and Marc Hyman. 115m. PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language and a brief drug reference.

2 stars

I’m assigning the same exact grade to “Meet the Fockers” as I did its 2000 predecessor, “Meet the Parents” because the movies promise the same laughs with the same recycled material, and yet I still find some level of amusement out of the whole charade.

I am an individual who still manages to drum up Hiroshima-sized scenarios of disgrace and embarrassment for himself before meeting parents of a significant other. I watched, with great fervor, the NBC reality series “Meet My Folks.” I certainly should be the ideal guinea pig for this rehash.

I can identify with Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), a nurse-by-day who just wants things to run smoothly when his parents - sex therapist Roz (Barbra Streisand) and former lawyer Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) – meet his future in-laws. Greg’s been warned by his fiancée’s father, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), that he’ll be studying these Floridian Fockers much as anthropologists study the frozen caveman: to determine if his lineage is firmly rooted.

“If your family’s circle joins in my family’s circle, they form a chain,” Byrnes tells his future son-in-law. “I can’t have a chink in my chain.”

Jack has somehow reattached his icy disposition toward Greg, despite an obvious softening by the conclusion of “Meet the Parents.” This movie seems to have dropped all pretense that there was a transformation in the first film, so it can recycle that tension.

The Focker parents, whose personalities seem jettisoned straight from the 1960s, manage to create the new friction. They just don’t plan get along with former CIA agent Byrnes, who hasn’t relaxed a day since his retirement it seems.

Matters are further complicated by Greg’s withholding of several embarrassing details, which compound jokes for presumably bigger laughs. Roz, his mother, is not just a doctor; she specializes in adult sexuality, which boils down to septuagenarians awkwardly humping on yoga mats. He’s also reserved details about his adolescent coupling with former maid Isabel (Alanna Ubach), which seems especially pertinent seeing the housekeeper has a son without a known father.
It’s up to Jack, and his extensive contact system still firmly positioned within the CIA, to shake the skeletons from Greg’s closet before the chains interlock and chinks are found. Roz and Bernie, meanwhile, have to deny their true natures to satiate Greg and ease hostilities with Jack. This results in the only worthwhile sentiment in the entire 115-minute affair, thanks to a believable performance by Hoffman. The truth of the matter is he won’t suppress his eccentricity for anyone, and can’t see why his son is so desperate to deny his own past.

Perhaps the greatest transgression of all this is that the apparent success of “Fockers” will necessitate another sequel, which really has no new ground left to tread over. In the second piece, airline hassles and bad karma are traded for finicky babies - like Jack’s nephew, Little Jack (Spencer and Brady Pickren) - and badly-timed clogs in toilets. Even with a little Focker planned, this franchise can’t possibly insult its audience intelligence by suggesting, again, the Jack doesn’t entrust Pam into Greg’s care. It just won’t work, just as it didn’t really pay off this time or the last time.

But may I join the chorus of others who have plainly suggested: If you liked the first one, by all means run to your local multiplex. If not, there’s always the comedy version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” to look forward to in two months.
Yes, folks, the originality store looks like it has truly gone out of business.