Little Fockers

Plot

Five years after the events of the previous film, Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Stiller) is preparing to celebrate his twins' fifth birthday party. Things seem to go awry when Greg's father-in-law Jack Byrnes (De Niro) visits. Recently, Jack has been diagnosed with a heart condition and become embittered by his daughter Debbie's divorce from her husband, Bob (whose marriage was the social event in the first film and how Jack and Greg met), for cheating on her with a nurse. Jack's plan was originally to name Bob as his successor as head of the Byrnes family, but decides to pass the role to Greg, naming him "The Godfocker." Despite Greg reluctantly accepting the role, Jack again resumes his spying on Greg, and begins to suspect him of infidelity when he sees him with a drug representative, Andi Garcia (Alba), who openly flirts with him, and the presence of Sustengo erection pills in Greg's house, which prompts Jack to think Greg is no longer sexually attracted to his wife, Pam (Polo). Furthermore, Jack starts to doubt Greg's ability to provide for his family when he appears reluctant to send his children to a private school.

During a medical conference promoting Sustengo, Greg meets Bob at a bar. Bob tells Greg of Jack's original intention to name him as successor, "The Bobfather," and expresses relief and happiness at leaving Jack's family, which makes Greg slightly uncomfortable. Jack, for his part, begins speaking with Pam about the possibility of divorcing Greg and renewing her relationship with her ex-fiancé, Kevin Rawley (Wilson). Eventually, following a row at a clinic, Greg runs away from home to his and Pam's unfinished new house, where he is paid a brief visit by Andi, who tries to cheer him up with takeout and wine, but Andi soon consumes so many erection pills and wine that she gets excessively drunk and makes an eccentric and very aggressive sexual pass on Greg. While looking for Greg, so he can apologize to him and bring him home, Jack pulls up to the house and sees, through the window, what looks to him like Greg and Andi having sex, when, in reality, Greg is trying to rebuff Andi's advances. Disgusted, Jack merely leaves, but tells Dina and Pam that he was unable to find Greg.

At the twins' birthday party the next day, Greg's parents, Bernie (Hoffman) and Roz (Streisand) rejoin the family, but Jack, enraged at Greg's apparent infidelity, engages Greg in a physical fight, despite Greg's claiming that Andi was drunk and that he was rebuffing her. The fight culminates in Jack's having a heart attack and collapsing, with Greg quickly taking charge of the situation and caring for Jack. As he is taken away by paramedics, Jack quietly admits that he now believes Greg after feeling his carotid artery, which remained stable while Greg was claiming his innocence. Impressed with Greg for his integrity and his thinking, Jack approves Greg to be the Godfocker.

Four months later, on Christmas Day, Greg and Pam's parents come to spend Christmas with them in their new house. Greg's parents (who are Jewish) give Jack a kippah as his present, informing him that they have traced his family roots while they were nursing him back to health, and discovered that he is part Jewish, which didn't impress Jack very much. Bernie informs Greg and Pam that he and Roz have sold their Miami Island home and are moving to Chicago, only two houses down from their house. Jack and Dina decide they will move, too, because they also want to be close to their grandchildren. The film ends with Greg and Pam trying to wean their parents off the idea.

During the credits, Jack is back in his home on Long Island. He has grown fond of the search engine Google (having used it to do research on Andi earlier in the film). With Mr. Jinx, the family's cat, Jack watches a video of Greg on YouTube in which Greg mocks him at the Sustengo conference. Jack then discovers a remixed version of the video using puns of several of the words in the video, and is slightly amused by it.

Cast

Production

Production for Little Fockers began in July 2009.

Writer John Hamburg stated the film would deal with "themes of death and divorce and all these real things that, as we get older, we start to think about, but in a really comical way."

Outside the United States, this is the first film in the series to be released by Paramount Pictures, which acquired the DreamWorks back catalog in 2006 (and owned the studio itself until 2008), including co-ownership in the Meet the Parents franchise. DreamWorks remains as a co-copyright holder with Universal Studios (as DW Studios).

On August 24, 2009, it was announced that Dustin Hoffman would be reprising his role as Greg's father, Bernie Focker. When the movie was in pre-production, the studios couldn't reach an agreement with Hoffman, but agreed on terms to bring him back for the film, though his role was significantly smaller than in the previous film due to the agreement coming after the initial filming. As such, they had to shoot the scenes and edit them to fit his character into the movie.

Release

In January 2010, the release date for the film was pushed back from July 30, 2010, to December 22, 2010, because Universal hoped to benefit from the long Christmas weekend.

The first trailer was released on June 24, 2010. It was then shown in front of showings of Grown Ups and Dinner for Schmucks. A second trailer was released online November 10, 2010 attached with Morning Glory, Unstoppable and Skyline. The film was released in the UK and US on December 22, 2010.

Critical reception

Little Fockers was panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 10% based on 146 reviews with an average rating of 3.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "As star-studded as it is heartbreakingly lazy, Little Fockers takes the top-grossing trilogy to embarrassing new lows." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 27 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.

On each website, it is Streisand's lowest rated film. Empire gave two stars out of five, summing up, "there are inevitably moments when Hoffman or Wilson get a laugh, but on the whole, it’s the same again, but weaker and with fewer good jokes." Alex Zane of Sun Online called the film a "predictable but not unwelcome addition to the Focker family", giving it three out of five stars.

The film was criticized for being too predictable and having a "stupid" or "unfunny" sense of humor. Anders Wotzke from Cut Print Review called the film less funny than the 1993 Holocaust film Schindler's List. Stars from the film have acknowledged critical dislike of the film. During his Lifetime Achievement Award speech at the Golden Globes, Robert De Niro poked fun at the critical drubbing the film received, stating, "I was very, very moved and gratified when you made the announcement [of this award] two months ago, well before you had a chance to review Little Fockers".

Box office performance

Little Fockers failed to match the opening weekend gross of its predecessor, Meet the Fockers. It opened first on its opening weekend on approximately 5,000 screens at 3,536 locations across US and Canada, bringing its five-day opening to $48.3 million. By comparison, Meet the Fockers made $46.1 million on the same weekend in 2004 for a five-day total of $70.5 million. As of April 9, 2011, Little Fockers grossed $148,438,600 in the United States and Canada, and $161,007,198 from other countries around the world, for a worldwide total of $309,445,798.

Home media

Little Fockers was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 5, 2011.