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Meet The Parents
Other // PG-13 // March 6, 2001
List Price: $19.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
2000 was an extremely weak year for comedies, though by a box office standpoint, I'm sure the studios would disagree. "Me, Myself, and Irene" was considered someone of a financial disappointment but still raked in almost a hundred million domestically. "Scary Movie" easily broke the $200 million barrier after factoring in foreign markets, and it smashed all sorts of records back home. There was "What Women Want", and hey, maybe Mel Gibson does know what women want, but I know what I want...to desperately avoid with every fiber of my being. One of the aspects I've found most disappointing about most of the blockbuster comedies over the past few years is the focus on gross-out humor. Okay, I'm sure you've probably decided from that statement that I'm some prudish twerp who gets his knickers in a bunch over any movie that's not in black and white and subtitled. No, I'm just a twerp, plain and simple, but a slasher obsessed twerp. Having spent most of my life seeing decapitations, dismemberment, and disembowelment on-screen, I'm not particularly impressed by movies like "Me, Myself, And Irene" or "Scary Movie" whose humor seems almost entirely based around showing genetalia and bodily fluids. Gross-out humor tends to try to get the audience to laugh in a "oh, I can't believe they just showed that!" way rather than an "oh, that's funny" way, and for those like myself who aren't easily impressed, these sorts of films fall flat.
Obviously that somewhat large paragraph has a point, and it's to say that "Meet The Parents" is a refreshing return to comedy based around (gasp!) humor. Ben Stiller stars as Greg Focker, a male nurse who at the beginning of the film is in the midst of an awkward proposal to his girlfriend Pam when he learns that his sister's fiancee had asked her father for permission first. Greg stops the proposal right there, which doesn't seem to bother Pam (Teri Polo), who wasn't quite sure what he was doing in the first place. Cut to the home of the titular parents, where Greg and Pam arrive in anticipation of Debbie and Bob's wedding. Greg tries to make a good impression with Pam's mother Dina, and he seems to do a commendable job. The overprotective and perpetually mistrusting Jack (Robert De Niro) isn't quite so easily swayed, particularly when an endless series of near-castastrophic accidents and seemingly harmless white lies start to pile up against Greg.
Yes, "Meet The Parents" is funny, one of the only comedies in recent memory where it required more than one hand to count the number of times I laughed. (For the record, I didn't laugh at all during "Me, Myself, and Irene". "Scary Movie" made me laugh all of twice.) "Funny" is a far cry from "hilarious", though, and "Meet The Parents" isn't really the sort of movie I see myself pulling out every week or two, laughing at the same parts as I've done with "Return of the Killer Tomatoes", "UHF", "One Crazy Summer", and others that aren't instantly springing to mind at the moment. It's cute, entertaining, and instantly forgettable -- "My Blue Heaven" for the year 2000. Perhaps I'm in the minority; films don't pull in $165 million without oodles of repeat viewers. This would normally be the sort of film I'd recommend seeing theatrically or renting once, but the DVD has a lot going for it, such as...
Video: Out of the last 10 reviews I've written, 80% have been new releases. These are becoming increasingly less fun to criticize now that the studios as a whole have much more of a grasp on how to put together a great looking DVD. A bunch of interesting catalog titles come out in the next month, though, so I guess I'll have some target for my relentless nitpicking in the very near future. Anyway, "Meet The Parents", a 16x9 enhanced disc with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 'near-flawless'. For some reason, recently I've found myself really paying attention to the way grass looks in movies. Warner's "Get Carter" -- now that's a disc with some quality grass shots, and "Meet The Parents" also has its fair share, sporting some really eye-catching autumn colors. Actually, colors throughout are rich and vibrant though managing to avoid seeming oversaturated or in any way unnatural. Clarity and detail are both strong. Aside from a bit more in the way of specks than I'd expect from such a recent reelase, I have no complaints, try as I might...
I know I'm going to re-read this review in a few weeks and wonder what the hell the grass thing was all about. That's okay, though.
Audio: "Meet The Parents", as with the majority of new Universal releases, features both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio. As I don't have a DTS-capable system, I can't really compare/contrast. I doubt it'd be significantly different than the disc's serviceable, if unremarkable, Dolby Digital soundtrack. As with most comedies, the dialogue is front-and-center, and...yeah, that about sums it up. Surrounds are used sparingly, and there's not much bass action at all. Sure, it's probably fairly representative of the way the film sounded theatrically, and I guess that's what counts.
Supplements: This is where "Meet The Parents" really shines.
First up is a "Spotlight On Location". I groaned when I first saw this option on the 'extra features' menu, expecting the typical eight-to-eleven minute promotional featurette consisting entirely of uninteresting, self-congratulatory interviews and footage from the film. Approaching documentary length, this 24-minute featurette is...well, a lot of uninteresting, self-congratulatory interviews and footage from the film.
More interesting are the two feature-length commentaries, both featuring director Jay Roach. The first track, with Roach and editor Jon Poll, is excruciatingly dull, but the second, with Roach, Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, and producer Jane Rosenthal, is much more lively, thanks to the presence of the exuberant Stiller. Rosenthal has little to add to the conversation, and De Niro, who, judging from this and "Analyze This", must intensely dislike the process of recording commentaries. Although the commentary with Roach and Poll is hardly a complete waste of time, I can't help but think that one combined commentary might have been a better idea.
Two deleted scenes, running a total of three minutes or so, can be viewed with or without commentary from Roach and Poll. Neither sequence struck me as being particularly funny. The nearly twelve minutes of outtakes don't offer too many laughs either, leading me to think that perhaps I don't have quite the sense of humor I thought. Most of the outtakes involve flubbed lines or laughter, and some of the longer, repeated sequences had me fighting my right thumb from press fast forward.
Two interactive games -- Take The Lie Detector and The Forecaster -- are nice diversions. According to the disc, I'm smarter than I let on, yet I'm a pathetic pansy. Right on both counts, I'm happy to say -- kudos to whoever wrote these pieces of software. Although the lie detector game is probably self-explanatory, the forecaster game rates you in terms of your answers to how you'd react in certain situations.
Universal's two Florida theme parks are shamelessly plugged in a deceptively titled option called "Meet The Parents Special Offer". I was thinking it was a rebate or something for the soundtrack. This second page of supplements also includes the theatrical trailer and production notes. I don't really read production notes anymore. Sorry.
Clicking "MORE >" for the second and final time turns up cast/crew bios, recommendations for other Universal titles, DVD-ROM supplements, a newsletter, and two trailers. Both trailers, "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" and "The Mummy Returns", are in 2.35:1 and not enhanced for widescreen TVs (boo!) but are in Dolby Digital 5.1 (yay!).
Conclusion: "Meet The Parents" is a cute comedy, easily eclipsing its largely banal, uninteresting competition. I didn't find it to be triple-digit-millions funny, though, and if not for the pair of commentaries, the disc more than likely would've remained on my shelf, forever untouched after that first viewing. (Admittedly, only having owned the disc for a week, I'm making an assumption as to what I'll think months and years down the road. These assumptions generally turn out to be wrong.) Still, the seemingly endless list of extras, a quality presentation, and the likelihood of being marked down to the under-twenty range in its first week of release make "Meet The Parents" an easy recommendation.
Obviously that somewhat large paragraph has a point, and it's to say that "Meet The Parents" is a refreshing return to comedy based around (gasp!) humor. Ben Stiller stars as Greg Focker, a male nurse who at the beginning of the film is in the midst of an awkward proposal to his girlfriend Pam when he learns that his sister's fiancee had asked her father for permission first. Greg stops the proposal right there, which doesn't seem to bother Pam (Teri Polo), who wasn't quite sure what he was doing in the first place. Cut to the home of the titular parents, where Greg and Pam arrive in anticipation of Debbie and Bob's wedding. Greg tries to make a good impression with Pam's mother Dina, and he seems to do a commendable job. The overprotective and perpetually mistrusting Jack (Robert De Niro) isn't quite so easily swayed, particularly when an endless series of near-castastrophic accidents and seemingly harmless white lies start to pile up against Greg.
Yes, "Meet The Parents" is funny, one of the only comedies in recent memory where it required more than one hand to count the number of times I laughed. (For the record, I didn't laugh at all during "Me, Myself, and Irene". "Scary Movie" made me laugh all of twice.) "Funny" is a far cry from "hilarious", though, and "Meet The Parents" isn't really the sort of movie I see myself pulling out every week or two, laughing at the same parts as I've done with "Return of the Killer Tomatoes", "UHF", "One Crazy Summer", and others that aren't instantly springing to mind at the moment. It's cute, entertaining, and instantly forgettable -- "My Blue Heaven" for the year 2000. Perhaps I'm in the minority; films don't pull in $165 million without oodles of repeat viewers. This would normally be the sort of film I'd recommend seeing theatrically or renting once, but the DVD has a lot going for it, such as...
Video: Out of the last 10 reviews I've written, 80% have been new releases. These are becoming increasingly less fun to criticize now that the studios as a whole have much more of a grasp on how to put together a great looking DVD. A bunch of interesting catalog titles come out in the next month, though, so I guess I'll have some target for my relentless nitpicking in the very near future. Anyway, "Meet The Parents", a 16x9 enhanced disc with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 'near-flawless'. For some reason, recently I've found myself really paying attention to the way grass looks in movies. Warner's "Get Carter" -- now that's a disc with some quality grass shots, and "Meet The Parents" also has its fair share, sporting some really eye-catching autumn colors. Actually, colors throughout are rich and vibrant though managing to avoid seeming oversaturated or in any way unnatural. Clarity and detail are both strong. Aside from a bit more in the way of specks than I'd expect from such a recent reelase, I have no complaints, try as I might...
I know I'm going to re-read this review in a few weeks and wonder what the hell the grass thing was all about. That's okay, though.
Audio: "Meet The Parents", as with the majority of new Universal releases, features both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio. As I don't have a DTS-capable system, I can't really compare/contrast. I doubt it'd be significantly different than the disc's serviceable, if unremarkable, Dolby Digital soundtrack. As with most comedies, the dialogue is front-and-center, and...yeah, that about sums it up. Surrounds are used sparingly, and there's not much bass action at all. Sure, it's probably fairly representative of the way the film sounded theatrically, and I guess that's what counts.
Supplements: This is where "Meet The Parents" really shines.
First up is a "Spotlight On Location". I groaned when I first saw this option on the 'extra features' menu, expecting the typical eight-to-eleven minute promotional featurette consisting entirely of uninteresting, self-congratulatory interviews and footage from the film. Approaching documentary length, this 24-minute featurette is...well, a lot of uninteresting, self-congratulatory interviews and footage from the film.
More interesting are the two feature-length commentaries, both featuring director Jay Roach. The first track, with Roach and editor Jon Poll, is excruciatingly dull, but the second, with Roach, Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, and producer Jane Rosenthal, is much more lively, thanks to the presence of the exuberant Stiller. Rosenthal has little to add to the conversation, and De Niro, who, judging from this and "Analyze This", must intensely dislike the process of recording commentaries. Although the commentary with Roach and Poll is hardly a complete waste of time, I can't help but think that one combined commentary might have been a better idea.
Two deleted scenes, running a total of three minutes or so, can be viewed with or without commentary from Roach and Poll. Neither sequence struck me as being particularly funny. The nearly twelve minutes of outtakes don't offer too many laughs either, leading me to think that perhaps I don't have quite the sense of humor I thought. Most of the outtakes involve flubbed lines or laughter, and some of the longer, repeated sequences had me fighting my right thumb from press fast forward.
Two interactive games -- Take The Lie Detector and The Forecaster -- are nice diversions. According to the disc, I'm smarter than I let on, yet I'm a pathetic pansy. Right on both counts, I'm happy to say -- kudos to whoever wrote these pieces of software. Although the lie detector game is probably self-explanatory, the forecaster game rates you in terms of your answers to how you'd react in certain situations.
Universal's two Florida theme parks are shamelessly plugged in a deceptively titled option called "Meet The Parents Special Offer". I was thinking it was a rebate or something for the soundtrack. This second page of supplements also includes the theatrical trailer and production notes. I don't really read production notes anymore. Sorry.
Clicking "MORE >" for the second and final time turns up cast/crew bios, recommendations for other Universal titles, DVD-ROM supplements, a newsletter, and two trailers. Both trailers, "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" and "The Mummy Returns", are in 2.35:1 and not enhanced for widescreen TVs (boo!) but are in Dolby Digital 5.1 (yay!).
Conclusion: "Meet The Parents" is a cute comedy, easily eclipsing its largely banal, uninteresting competition. I didn't find it to be triple-digit-millions funny, though, and if not for the pair of commentaries, the disc more than likely would've remained on my shelf, forever untouched after that first viewing. (Admittedly, only having owned the disc for a week, I'm making an assumption as to what I'll think months and years down the road. These assumptions generally turn out to be wrong.) Still, the seemingly endless list of extras, a quality presentation, and the likelihood of being marked down to the under-twenty range in its first week of release make "Meet The Parents" an easy recommendation.
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