‘Fockers’ provides a painless family reunion

Four years ago, “Meet the Parents” turned the tricky business of meeting future in-laws into a hit comedy for Ben Stiller. As a male nurse with the unfortunate name of Greg Focker, he spent much of the movie tangling with his fiance’s intimidating father, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), who turned out to be a retired CIA agent.

The smooth but more vulgar sequel, “Meet the Fockers,” offers much of the same, plus Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Greg’s parents (it’s her first movie in eight years), a Florida setting known as Focker Isle, and a more skeptical post-WMD attitude toward the CIA — which is referred to at one point as the Central Lack of Intelligence Agency.

Quick facts Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner Director: Jay Roach MPAA rating: PG-13

All the new elements fit neatly enough into the old formula, especially Hoffman and Streisand, who revel in the chance to offer a different kind of in-law challenge. She’s a sex therapist and author of racy self-help books, he’s a retired lawyer, and these aging Jewish hippies turn out to be as loose as the Byrneses are uptight.

Hoffman’s Bernie is especially fond of hugging strangers, while Streisand’s Roz offers aggressive massages and marital advice for the sex-starved Byrneses. Naturally, Jack becomes their chief target for liberation. The filmmakers seem especially addicted to the sight of Jack squirming at all the unwelcome attention.

“Give me some love,” insists Bernie, oblivious to Jack’s inability to respond to his smooches. Still, Jack isn’t a total stick. More than in the first film, Jack and Greg clearly enjoy the mind games they play with each other. In their demented, equally competitive ways, they appear to be having a pretty good time.

Also part of the sequel’s cast: a baby who is smart enough to steer a remote control to the channel showing Al Pacino’s “Scarface”; a seductive housekeeper who long ago relieved Greg of his virginity (with the enthusiastic approval of Bernie and Roz); and the housekeeper’s 15-year-old son (Ray Santiago), who might just be Greg’s child as well.

FREE VIDEO Ben Stiller Ben Stiller chats with the "Today" show's Matt Lauer about getting Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman to join him in his new movie, "Meet the Fockers." Today show

The original director, Jay Roach, is back, and so are Stiller, De Niro, Teri Polo (as Focker’s fiancee Pam), Blythe Danner (as Jack’s wife Dina) and the first film’s writers, Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg. They do a consistently better job than most sequel-makers of recapturing the appeal of the original.

Having created the original, of course, they should be expected to do nothing less. But it doesn’t always work out that way. They’ve somehow managed to balance the new with the old without creating a stale retread — even if what’s “new” here is something less than fresh.

The addition of Bernie and Roz suggests yet another rewrite of “The Birdcage” (aka “La Cage aux Folles”), with De Niro in the Gene Hackman role and Hoffman and Streisand sharing Nathan Lane’s part. And there are other elements that feel repetitive and tired (Jack’s toilet-trained cat should be given a firm flush). But as family reunions go this season, “Meet the Fockers” is pretty painless.

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