Little Fockers – movie review

I’m a big fan of Meet the Parents, and I loved Meet the Fockers. I wanted to see Little Fockers because I wanted to see Greg and Jack go head to head again, but at the same time, kids tend to change things. I wasn’t a fan of the title, either, but at the same time I understand that it would have been hard to come up with any other title. My love of Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro won out, however, so (obviously) I saw this newest movie in the series.

I was afraid that the addition of the kids would ruin the dynamic that Jack and Greg had in the previous movies. I worried over nothing, as the kids didn’t even play that big of a role in the grand scheme of the movie. Jack had been scorned and took it out on Greg, and Greg tried to roll with the punches. It’s the same dynamic that we had come to love in Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers. The kids are more or less a plot device used just to help Jack be crazier.

I don’t know why I’m almost offended by a Google search in the movie, but Jack finds a girl named Andi Garcia on the Internet in just two searches. I actually performed his searches to see if I could find a girl named Andi Garcia that fast without being referred to the actor–you can’t. I get that it’s a plot point, and it’s a movie, but it’s crazy. The other thing that bothered me is that Jack was choosing a patriarch between Dr. Bob and Greg. Doesn’t Jack have a son? There was a son in the first movie. The son actually has the last name Byrne, and it is the Byrne family that needs a patriarch; it just seems weird that Jack would outsource. I have to admit, though, that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Meet the Parents, so I could be forgetting something that would explain that.

I was absolutely impressed with Jessica Alba in Little Fockers. She played Andi Garcia, who was just funny. I’ve liked her in a handful of movies, but I couldn’t stop laughing any time she was on screen in this movie. I didn’t think I could like Jessica Alba that much, but she was just a delight.

I was not a fan of the twins, Samantha and Henry. I like Daisy Tahan, who plays Samantha, from when she was on Nurse Jackie. I’m unfamiliar with Colin Baiocchi, who plays Henry, who was absolutely adorable. However, as twins, they don’t work. While they want us to believe that Samantha is just tougher and developed faster than Henry because she apparently has more Byrne genes or something–and they actually say she has more Byrne genes in the movie–it seems obvious that Daisy is older than Colin in real life. In all fairness, I don’t know how old either actor is, so they could be the same age, but it just didn’t seem like it.

I always enjoy the chemistry that Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller have on screen. They try to change it up with Jack and Greg getting along like best friends, then Jack returning to his suspicious ways, then the two of them trying to kill each other. It was pretty epic. It was a great way for what I hope is the last installment to end.

Overall, I enjoyed Little Fockers. It was funny, and there were very few moments throughout the movie where I wasn’t laughing. The character of Greg has really developed and grown over the past ten years, and Jack has only filled his heart with more love–even if he tries to hide it. I would definitely watch the movie again.