MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2:
A HARMLESS BUT FORGETTABLE SECOND WEDDING!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: ** 1/2 out of 4
UNIVERSAL
PICTURES
The
Greeks are back for more hijinks and hilarity in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Making a sequel over ten years after
the first film is a very risky move, especially if the movie is a comedy, there
was Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
which is good, but then there’s Dumb and
Dumber To and Zoolander 2 that
just rehash its predecessor or simply not as funny as it was back in the 90s
and 2000s. So I can safely say I wasn’t very enthusiastic when I first heard
they were doing a sequel to the 2002 hit comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Going back to the first My Big Fat Greek Wedding movie, I don’t
consider it a great comedy or one of those must-see staples of the genre, but I
thought it was a decent flick, a goofy comedy about a couple getting married
and a colorful cast of family members, the jokes and timing were okay, but what
made the first movie so enjoyable to me was the family, Good God I love this
family, from the grouchy grandma and grandpa to the sassy aunt, they actually
remind me of characters I would see on a show like The Simpsons.
But apparently the film was a big
hit when it came out and even nominated for an Academy Award®, spawned a short lived TV series, My Big Fat Greek Life, and now fourteen
years after the first film, we have this sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and that’s where I come in. With my
thoughts on the first film being adequate my expectations on the sequel were
very low and could you really blame me? Most comedy sequels are almost never as
good as its predecessor, as well as sequels being made over ten years after its
predecessor.
So I was ready to bash this movie
hard, but to my surprise, Eh, it pretty much shared my exact thoughts on The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,
where it’s very unnecessary in its existence but what keeps it going are its
characters. And like I said before, the family still manages to get some
laughs, despite the fact the movie itself is very dated.
The humor itself is the kind that
would be on a sitcom from the 90s or 2000s like Seinfeld, Mad About You, or
Friends, but as cheesy at it is, it
gets some giggles going, either intentionally or unintentionally. Basically if
you’ve seen the first movie, you know exactly what you’re getting into here.
The film follows Toula
Portokalos-Miller (Nia Vardalos-Team
Knight Rider, Connie and Carla, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and
Ian Miller (John Corbett-Northern
Exposure, Tombstone, Sex and the City) after having a Big Fat
Greek Wedding and a Big Fat Greek Life coming to grips with her teenage daughter,
Paris (Elena Kampouris-Labor Day, Men, Women, & Children, American Odyssey) wanting to leave for
college in New York City and her family may be causing her to become a social
outcast. From her dad being her high school principal, her mom showing up at
P.E. class to her entire family barging into a school college fair and of
course hijinks and embarrassment commence.
However, Toula and Ian’s Greek
family soon realize that her parents, Gus (Michael Constantine-My Life, Roots:
The Next Generations, MacGyver) and Maria (Lainie Kazan-Harry and the Hendersons, You
Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Pixels)
aren’t legally married as the legal document approving their marriage has never
been signed by a priest. So Toula, Ian, and Paris, with the help of Aunt Voula
(Andrea Martin-Black Christmas, Anastasia, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius), Uncle Taki (Gerry Mendicino-Ready or Not, The Big Hit, Universal Soldier
III: Unfinished Business), and the rest of the family must pull off another
Big Fat Greek Wedding while helping Paris take off for college.
Overall, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 can be summed up by its title, more
hijinks with a wacky foreign family, I don’t consider it a bad thing, honestly
it’d be a bad thing if it was written by the folks at Happy Madison Productions, but I digress. Does this movie need to
exist? No, it doesn’t, the first movie was fine the way it was, it didn’t need
a sequel nor did it need a TV show, but if they had to do a sequel, I’m glad it
had plenty of screen time for the family, they manage to have both goofy and
quirky moments but at the same time enough touching moments to warm the heart.
But you really need to know what you’re
getting into here, if you’re not a fan of 90s or 2000s style humor that you
would see on a television sitcom, this isn’t your flick. But if you want
something cute and harmless and get a few giggles out of you, this might be a
second outing with the Greeks you might find enjoyable.
