Mediocre Movie Month 2016: Some Thoughts on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2"

I can't wait for them to learn the
exact same lessons as the first film.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016)

Directed by Kirk Jones
Produced by Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson
Written by Nia Verdalos

Starring Nia Verdalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Andrew Martin, Ian Gomez, Elena Kampouris

Budget: $18M

The first My Big Fat Greek Wedding was something of an anomaly in the film landscape. What started as a one-woman play written by Verdalos eventually reached Tom Hanks's radar and exploded to become one of the most successful romantic comedies of all time. Despite it never reaching the top of the box office, it still grossed an insane $368M on a budget of $5M.

In the sequel, Toula is a helicopter parent in a helicopter family. Her daughter is going off to college, Ian is the principal at her school, and the family is as large and loud as ever. This time it's Toula's parents renewing their vows and all the comedy that comes along with it. We get some obvious scenes of Toula reciting Lainie Kazan's lines from the first film to show that she's becoming her mother, and by the end we all learn a valuable lesson that family's great, in moderation.

Comedy!

It becomes immediately apparent that this is a sequel which didn't understand why the first was successful and just goes for the easiest jokes and references to the first. Toula is dressed in exactly the same style as she was at the beginning of the first movie, her father is reciting almost exactly the same speech to her daughter, Paris (Kampouris), and we soon see circumstances have seen fit to remove all the progress Toula made in the last film.

The comedy, when it isn't using the first movie as a crutch, is the easiest lowest-common-denominator you see in these sorts of sequels. Every so often a character will deliver a line that's actually worth a chuckle, but these are fairly rare and feel more like accidents than intentional comedy.

One of the things that made the first work was the heart involved and the sincerity evident in the character interactions. That's been wiped from this movie and replaced by mean-spirited Flanderization reducing each of the characters to their basest tropes and characteristics. Oh, they were a big, loving family in the last movie? Well now they're big, loud, and unable to follow even the basest of social norms. The only real glimmer of this is a scene between Paris and the family matron (Meisler) that makes Paris realize she's not going to be satisfied staying in Chicago, just to placate her mother.

Oh, and of course the finale wedding is the same night as prom, so Paris can have her slow dance with the cute school boy from a similarly large Greek family, presumably for them to break up a few months later after they go to schools at separate ends of the country.

The Big
The movie isn't utterly devoid of charms. There are a few lines which drew laughs from me, primarily from the performances. Gus telling Rob Riggle about Alexander the Great spreading his seed over Spain was unexpected (and ultimately promised a tone that wasn't delivered), and Voula (Martin) telling Toula that "Greek don't creak" stood out against the rest of the flat-lines.

Some of the chemistry from the first movie's still left evident, primarily in Verdalos and Corbett. Their scenes together are fairly convincing, but I think that's mostly because neither of them have become caricatures of themselves from the first film. Kampouris plays a convincingly embarrassed high school student.

The Fat
Joey Fatone has finally grown into his surname.

Most of my criticisms have been outlined above, but the primary one is that nothing in this movie really comes together in the way the first one did. The shadow of the first movie hangs over it enough to make you wonder why you aren't just watching that one.

The What Do You Mean You Don't Eat No Meat?
When asked about another sequel, Verdalos said she hasn't put any writing down, but that she had an idea. I am 100% willing to bet that it will be about Paris getting engaged to a not-Greek, because that's the most obvious follow-up and I don't know that there's a whole lot of effort put into this "series."

Verdict
Watch the first one instead. Let this one vanish into the ether.