‘Fockers’ easy to forget

Published 1:58 pm Thursday, January 6, 2005

The problem with “Meet the Fockers,” the lucrative sequel to the profitable “Meet the Parents,” is that there really is nothing wrong with it.

Its 100 or so minutes pass painlessly and effortlessly. It contains an “A” list cast having a ball doing slick and professional work. It contains at least three side-splitting, eye-watering, hilarious scenes. The problem is, that there really is no problem, which means, there is really nothing to remember.

Directed by Jay Roach, “Meet the Fockers” takes absolutely no chances and works pretty hard at being not controversial, not original or not surprising. There are plenty of tastefully tasteless puns and permutations about the title family’s moniker as well as potty jokes that don’t get too filthy and sex jokes that play it close to the corset while pretending to “push the envelope.”

The cast, featuring three expensive icons, don’t really play real characters so much as they just do semi goofy things, carefully designed to make us laugh and say, “Hey that’s Robert DeNiro, Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman being silly – isn’t that great?” Well, no. Not really.

Perhaps their collective days of blazing new trails and organically igniting the screen with unique characterizations that galvanized our entire culture are behind them. And us. But that’s not really their fault. Or ours. It may be that in an effort to work and remain popular in the public’s eye, they are cashing in on their uber celebrity status. Who can blame them?

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John Remington teaches drama and language arts at Pendleton High School.

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