It’s unnecessary to meet the parents if you’ve already met the trailer. [PG-13]
By: Kam Wiliams
You all know, or you ought to know, that the primary reason a big Hollywood studio, like Universal, makes any film is to make money. In order to maximize profits, a studio will often run spoiling commercials and trailers which will get you in the theater but that will also ruin the ultimate viewing experience.
Unfortunately, this is the case with Meet the Parents, a comedy-of-errors affair directed by the comic genius Jay Roach (Austin Powers I & II). Both the basic storyline and the best dozen or so jokes are revealed in the ads for the movie.
It doesn’t make any sense to Meet the Parents if you’ve already met the trailer, so to speak. You’re better off catching the commercial again, because then you won’t have to endure the torturous set-up to telegraphed punchlines which you already know are coming.
Don’t blame director Roach. He did his job by developing a clever premise and putting a hilarious script into the hands of a talented cast. Two-time Oscar-winner Robert DeNiro (for Godfather II and Raging Bull), who proved himself a master of comedic material in Analyze This, stars as Jack Byrnes, an ex-CIA agent and overprotective parent of a pair of eligible young ladies. Ben Stiller (Reality Bites) co-stars as Greg Focker, a bumbling boyfriend seeking the hand of one of Jack’s daughters in marriage.
Curiously, Stiller’s recent venture, Keeping the Faith, placed him in the similar role of awkward suitor. That film, too, suffered from an overexposure in commercials. Here, the typecast Stiller again plays that awkward, befuddled character he first perfected in There’s Something About Mary.
And keep an eye on scene-stealer Owen Wilson (The Haunting), who makes the most of a cameo as Kevin, Pam’s pompous ex-fiancé. His offbeat sensibility, which worked well opposite Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon, works well opposite DeNiro and company.
But the actresses in Meet the Parents are relegated to disappointingly empty roles. Blonde-of-the-moment Teri Polo (Maggie on the WB TV series Felicity) appears as Pam, Greg’s fiancée. Blythe Danner (The Prince of Tides), Gwyneth Paltrow’s real-life mom, is wasted here as Dina, Pam’s mom. Blythe plays Dina as an addlepated, Edith Bunker-type, as if confused or stricken by the early onset of Alzheimer’s. And Phyllis George, who you may remember as a former Miss America (1971) or on The NFL Today, makes a forgettable film debut as a future in-law. After the opening credits roll, we find NYC schoolteacher Greg trying to work up the courage to pop the question to Pam. But when he learns that her old-fashioned father expects Greg to ask him for his daughter’s hand first, the couple make a trip upstate to meet the parents.
Once there, in accordance with Murphy’s Law, anything that can go wrong, does go wrong, and at the worst possible time.
You’ve seen the ad. Jack straps Greg to the lie detector. Greg claims to be able to milk anything with nipples. Jack responds with, "I have nipples. Can you milk me?" Greg flushes septic tank which floods the field where Pam’s sister’s wedding is about to take place. Then a stuck pick-up truck’s wheels spew feces all over the wedding party. It culminates with Greg chasing the cat onto the roof, knocking a drainpipe into a power line and setting the whole darn house on fire. Catch the commercial again, already on boob tubes everywhere.
Rated PG-13 for sexual situations and double entendré.
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