 | |  | | Media: | HD DVD | | Country: | USA | | Studio: | Universal Studios Home Entertainment | | Cert: | PG-13 | | Discs: | 1 |
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| Review Scores | | Movie |  | | Picture |  | | Sound | | | Extras |  | | Overall | | | Review Verdict | Meet the Parent with its strong cast and great idea should be an excellent film, but it somehow manages to loose its way with unfunny situations and its general mean spiritedness. As an HD DVD package a reasonable picture and average sound is nevertheless backed up by an superior extras package, even if I wasn’t particularly taken by them.
| | Overall score : 5 | | Movie | | Meet The Parents | | Date | 2000 | | Genre | | Comedy | | Director | | Jay Roach | | Stars | Ben Stiller
Blythe Danner
Robert De Niro
Teri Polo |
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Screen captures are for illustration purposes and may not originate from the item reviewed. | | Meet The Parents Review| HD DVD review written by Simon Crust, published 16th March 2007 | Supplied for review by  | The premise of Meet the Parents is a sound one, but somewhere along the line it just fails to live up to that initial idea. Meeting a partners parents is fraught with comedic possibilities and uncomfortable situations and the film, at least, in the beginning manages to live up to that aspect, but somewhere in the middle is looses its way and descends into something a little more mean spirited.
Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller) has a whirlwind romance with Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo), so much so that within ten months he has decided he wants to marry her. On the day of his proposal, however, he overhears Pam talking to her sister about the values her father has, i.e. asking permission to marry his daughters, so he decides to put off the proposal until he himself as gotten that very permission. Enter Jack (Robert De Nero) who seems to delight in making things as uncomfortable for Greg as possible. During the next few days things go from bad to worse for Greg, with the entire family eventually ganging up against him until the final confrontation, yet even that turns out to be bad for him. Dejected and rejected Greg decides to leave, and only when Jack hears the anguish in Pam’s lamenting does he mellow and do what’s best for his daughter.
If the idea for the film is sound so too are the casting choices, and it is in a large part due to these choices that the film scores better then it deserves. Ben Stiller has played the put upon character many times before and so he seems to fit the role; though I think this time around a little more pathos would have worked better, because Greg, although likable, does make some questionable choices and with perhaps a little more empathy with the character might make us feel for him. Even in the final showdown against the family, his character never really manages to sway our feelings. However the star of the picture is, without a doubt, Robert De Nero. Obviously know for playing some of the hardest characters in filmic history, the very idea that he could turn to comedy is near inconceivable. But turn he has, and, like the best comedic actors, he plays a near straight character in Jack. So when he speaks his comedic lines one can’t help but smile (“Have you ever watched pornographic videotapes”), or when put into comedic situations one has to laugh with him (getting splashed with cesspit mud).
It is unfortunate then that as the film drags on, these comedic situations become more and more ludicrous, going beyond believability, and. if that wasn’t bad enough, the characters reactions to the same are exaggerated above credibility. Perhaps one could forgive such developments if the ideas were not so vicious. Some scenes reminded me of a Farrelly brother’s comedy but without the dark streak. Of course all this viciousness is there only to bring together a weepy ending, but because of that fact we expect it, and when it comes it is neither weepy nor, as it turns out, the end (that would be explored in the sequel). The reconciliation of Jack and Greg, leading to a happy reunion with Pam and Greg coming off as forced because no matter how much one might love ones family, if they were ever to treat a partner in such a way as Greg suffers then, quite frankly, they are not worth knowing. The longer the film continued the more I was wishing it would end, finding little or no sympathy with anything happening on the screen. Meet the Parents does have a few laughs in it, but they are too far stretched to make this incredibly long film stay the distance.
Movie score : 5 | | 643 word review written by Simon Crust. |  | To comment on this review, click here and post a reply.
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