Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, Owen Wilson, Blythe Danner
Director: Jay Roach
Ben Stiller stars in this comedy as a male nurse who wants to ask his girlfriend to marry him with the perfect proposal. However just as he is about to pip the question he learns that his girlfriend’s sister has just announced her engagement and that her fiance did the right thing by asking her father’s permission first. To make things perfect he must also ask his girlfriend’s father’s permission and that means he has to ‘meet the parents’!
He and his girlfriend flu out for a weekend family gathering at what he hopes to be his future in-laws’ house and that’s where everything starts to go wrong, especially when it involves his girlfriend’s father, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro).
Ben Stiller plays his character exactly as though he had just walked off the set of SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and he does it very well. The problem is MEET THE PARENTS although being a similar type of comedy to THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY is just not as funny. It’s still a good movie although even a film as half as funny as THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY would be enjoyable. Unless you’re in the right mood don’t hold your expectations too high and you’ll still have quite a few good laughs.
