Ben Stiller, please stop the Fockers

Some actors can eek out an entire career with a shtick that works, like the Three Stooges bopping and warbling their way to hilarity.

Ben Stiller is no Stooge, but he sure has ridden a one-trick pony in the Focker franchise. What started as a nice little character comedy about a kindly but accident-prone nurse Gaylord “Greg” Focker (Stiller) meeting his girlfriend’s parents, one of whom is retired CIA operative Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro). Nothing wrings out the laughs like a lie detector test from a future in-law and jokes about being a man in a female dominated profession.

But of course the big joke is about Greg’s last name and what swear word it rhymes with. Wow, it’s like Stiller gets his comedy gold from grade school. This is the kind of humour that stopped growing in sophistication when you were eight.

That continues inLittle Fockers with more of the same name-based jokes. Focker has an interaction with Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba), a pharmaceutical company representative who offers him a position as a spokesperson for Sustengo, an erectile dysfunction medicine. Ha. Ha. Ho-hum. After Jack suffers a heart attack, he names Greg head of the family using the term ‘Godfocker.’ The word is repeated several times for dramatic effect over the subsequent two minutes.

And the groans continue.

If you laughed then you will undoubtedly enjoy this and the entire Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler oeuvres as well. It’s startling that Hoffman and De Niro can’t find anything more intelligent on which to devote their talents. Neither Midnight Cowboy nor Midnight Run needed scenes of children vomiting or amusing references to human anatomy.

It doesn’t matter that the plot thickens with soap opera drama about allegations of Focker’s infidelity with Garcia. It doesn’t matter that there are more recognizable faces in this film than in a satellite photo of Hollywood.

So what we’re left with is something so awful it makes the Stooges look like Nobel laureates of comedy. What a sad state of affairs.

There’s a lot to be said for the success of a movie based solely on the likeability of the actors as opposed to the characters. Robert Downey Jr. can get away with playing a scumball or a hapless mensch because everyone knows how he overcame his own personal demons to come out on top. Stiller, on the other hand, comes across as a kind of popularity obsessed snake oil salesman who tries too hard to justify his own omnipresence. He doesn’t have much of a personality so he makes up for it with poop jokes.

It’s a fair guess that the remake of True Grit or the new Tron movie are more original than this dreck.

Little Fockers is a tragic waste of energy with a colossal lack of creativity or inspiration. Sadly, the movie ends with a lot of opportunity for a fourth entry in the series. If it’s about Focker’s mother then I have a pretty good guess as to what the title will be, and how much of it will be funny.