Little Fockers

Directed by Paul Weitz. Starring Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Owen Wilson, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Jessica Alba, Laura Dern, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand 15A cert, gen release, 97 min

Several big stars are humiliated in this desperately unfunny comedy, writes Donald Clarke

FOR THE second time, the folks behind the Meet the Parentsfranchise are confronted with the frustrating dynamics of the mainstream comedy. At the end of such entertainments, all tensions are resolved and any warring parties — say, a deranged father-in-law and his daughter's suspiciously sensitive fiancé — reach a kind of happy understanding. The lion lies down with the lamb amid a cosy mass of neatly tidied-up loose ends.

Fashioning a sequel to this class of beast offers similar challenges to manufacturing a follow-up to a war film that inconveniently took in the relevant armistice. We have to somehow get the antagonists at one another’s throats one more time (before resolving the dispute again).

The largely awful Meet the Fockersmanaged this by sending Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), the ex-CIA man with the scary cat, and Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller), the shy nurse, now married to the older man's daughter, off to stay with Mr Focker's creepy parents, hippies of the old school. After an hour or two of free love, Gaylord and Jack had recommenced their clenched dispute.

How have the film-makers managed to break-up the subsequently reunited in-laws this time round? Well, after an hour and a half of the hilariously named Little Fockers, most sane viewers will find that question frustratingly hard to answer. Ropey as Meet the Fockerswas, it did, at least, have an identifiable high-concept at its core: Ben Stiller's parents are Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman. The new film's script is little more than a morass of half-notions, semi-pitches and quasi-subplots. One imagines the actors being handed a fistful of envelopes, each featuring one hastily scribbled bad idea, and being dispatched naked before the camera.

One useless strand finds Jessica Alba, representative of a company manufacturing erectile-disfunction medication, inviting Stiller’s Nurse Focker to head-up a presentation for her product. You know how this ancient gag goes. Greg tells Pam (Teri Polo), his near-invisible partner, that the new colleague is, oh, you know, really ugly and that. When Mrs Focker meets the dolly bird she fumes.

Elsewhere, Jack is nursing a heart complaint and his wife (Blythe Danner), encouraged by the sex-chat TV programme hosted by Streisand, is pondering ways to spice up their love life. Meanwhile, Greg’s dad is taking Flamenco lessons in Spain. There’s also a feeble strand concerning Pam’s former boyfriend (a barely conscious Owen Wilson) and his efforts to win over a glamorous Russian lady.

The laziness on display here fairly takes the breath away. Whereas the aggressively cheesy Meet the Fockersat least generated the odd desperate groan, Little Fockersis so nebulous, deadened and perfunctory that the only logical response is to curl up, close your eyes and hope your dreams take place in a world where De Niro can still look himself in the mirror without retching. Maybe the version of Streisand that lives in such a dreamland will look less like a boiled Minnie Driver. Maybe Harvey Keitel will find better things to do than bellow his way through a humiliating cameo as an shady construction worker.

So, the project is doomed? Well, it's worth remembering that, almost alone in the world, Ireland made Meet the Fockersits most lucrative film of 2005 (the year Revenge of the Sithwas released). Don't let us down again, people. The nation has suffered enough indignities this year.

On release