Having enjoyed "Meet the Parents" well enough, I looked forward to "Meet the Fockers." However, my reaction to the sequel is mixed.

Most notably, "Fockers" dives into a small cycle that sticks for the majority of the film: Stiller is intimidated by DeNiro, jitters, awkwardly agrees with him, encourages his own parents to be less themselves, DeNiro becomes appalled by "Fockers." It's clearly contrived, yet undeniably funny. The dog in the toilet scene is a perfect microcosm of the picture. It's so very contrived, predictable, you may even wince at the fact that the film could be so shallow, yet, watching a Chihuahua slowly circle down a toilet is inescapably funny.

The cycle grates and Stiller's silly uncomfortableness becomes more annoying than humorous. Eventually, thankfully, the film begins a build toward something in the last quarter. DeNiro takes action on suspicions, Streisand (as Stiller's Sex Therapist mom) starts to work her magic on the stiff houseguests and Stiller finally breaks his nervousness with a drug and a microphone. But, it seems, all of this interesting build happens in the film's last half-hour, maybe forty minutes.

Overall, there's quite a lot of material here and some of it is quite funny, but with such a powerful cast, you may be expecting more substance and less sophomore.

Dustin Hoffman says of his character: "Bernie is basically the kind of a guy who wouldn't mind leaving the door open while he went to the bathroom on an airplane just so he could continue a conversation with the people that he was talking to around his seat."