'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2': Over-stuffed and underachieving
Ever been to a聽wedding聽where you don't know anyone very well? It's pretty deadly, no matter how good the food or the band might be. Everyone's laughing really hard at jokes you don't find funny, or even understand.
On the other hand, if you know and love everyone, you'll have fun even if the canapes are soggy.
And that, dear moviegoer, is about as deep as we need to go in analyzing "My聽Big聽Fat聽Greek聽Wedding聽2," an overstuffed, under-achieving sequel that took more than a decade to come to the screen. If you've been dying for a reunion with those aggressively lovable folks known as the Portokalos family, maybe you'll be happy. But if you didn't miss them that much or, maybe didn't even know them in the first place, stay away from this聽wedding. Send a gift and call it a day.
The fact that the film took 14 years to arrive 鈥� Nia Vardalos is again the star and writer 鈥� is both a blessing and a curse. It may have stoked huge interest 鈥� the original was a ginormous sleeper hit 鈥� but it also implies that we're about to see something worth the wait. Instead, the script is a tired pastiche of what seem like the same gags we heard the first time.聽Greek聽families are big聽and affectionate!聽Greek聽families get involved in each other's business!聽Greek聽families smother you with love! And so on.
We begin in snowy Chicago, where Toula (Vardalos) is still married to her Waspy hunk of a husband, Ian (John Corbett, amiable but peripheral), now the high school principal. Her father, Gus (Michael Constantine), is still very much the patriarch, a man who swears he's related to Alexander the Great and believes that every word in the English language comes from聽Greek, even "Facebook." The rest of the gang is back, too, including Lainie Kazan as Toula's mom, Maria, and the terrific Andrea Martin as Aunt Voula.
But 14 years have passed; Toula and Ian are now parents of a high school senior, pretty Paris (Elena Kampouris), who's aching to spread her wings. Paris rolls her mascara-heavy eyes when her grandfather, on the way to school, instructs her to quickly find a Greek聽boy and marry him.
Such grandfatherly advice is par for the course, but poor Paris really suffers when this theme is stretched to ridiculous proportions as the entire clan 鈥� cousins, aunts, uncles 鈥� shows up at the school's college fair, where they virtually accost the representative from Northwestern and threaten him with punishment should Paris not be admitted. Oh, families. So silly.
This is a recurring problem with the film, directed by Kirk Jones; what seemed quirky and funny in the original is exaggerated to un-funny extent here. It's as if Vardalos was trying to take things to a darker, more interesting place, but at every such turn, got scared and went for slapstick humor instead.
But OK, given the title, there's got to be ... a聽wedding, right? Well, Toula's already married, and Paris is too young. And so, we have a plot device whereby Gus discovers that his original marriage license from Greece was never signed.
Time for a聽wedding! More importantly, time for a wedding-dress shopping montage! Because that's what every movie in the history of cinema has done when a woman needs a聽wedding聽dress!
Of course, there are a few obstacles along the way. But we all know that we'll get our happy聽wedding, some way, somehow. And you'll surely smile at a few points 鈥� who's not a sucker for a聽big聽wedding, right?
