Review: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Cert: 12A / 92 mins / Dir. Nia Vardalos / Trailer

There's a moment in Kevin Smith's second 'Evening With' video which addresses the fiscal reality of working in the entertainment industry. When asked if he - as a successful movie director, writer and actor - magically has cash lying around, Kevin replies "Sir, I have a family. I'm married and I have a kid. Honestly, I kind of live very hand-to-mouth where it's like I get paid, and then I go back to work, and I get paid and basically we just spend that money until there's no money left. And then I'm like '...well, what did Jay and Silent Bob do this week?'" Cue the mock-knowing laughter of a sycophantic audience acknowledging the artist's easy go-to of reliving former glories.

In unrelated news, successful movie director, writer and actor Nia Vardalos has a new My Big Fat Greek Wedding film out this week.

HOLIDAY

Reuniting the (surviving*¹) cast from previous excursions, Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett) finally book themselves a first-time holiday to Greece with assorted family members to visit her late father's childhood village and hold a party in his memory. Brother Nick (Louis Mandylor) accompanies them with a secret plan for the homecoming-dispersal of the ashes, with Aunts Voula (Andrea Martin) and Frieda (Maria Vacratsis) thrown in for tag-along comedy value.

They're joined by Toula and Ian's daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) who's on the verge of failing college, and her sort-of-ex/half boyfriend Aristotle (Elias Kacavas) to add some teenage angst. Once back in the home-country, new characters arrive in the form of fearsome Alexandra (Anthi Andreopoulou), mysterious stranger Peter (Alexis Georgoulis), sparky town mayor Victory (Melina Kotselou), and Syrian refugee Qamar (Stephanie Nur) struggling to find acceptance in the traditional village. Old favourites Nikki (Gia Carides) and Angelo (Joe Fatone) arrive later in a further bid to reunite all of their father's childhood friends, and in the end the party is arranged for the same date as an impromptu wedding which is quickly pencilled in during the second act. It's all going on.

MUTINY

This is, with the very best will in the world, a complete shambles. Far too televisual in its scope*², far too many plot threads, few of which are properly developed (again), too many cast members, too many recurring-catchphrases in lieu of jokes, and a marked impatience in reaching its own natural conclusion.

Vardalos manages to under-write her own screenplay and then over-direct it, but the worst offender by far is the number of glaring 'laugh-gaps' - the leaden silences left in the script and sound-mix after a throwaway punchline is ham-fistedly delivered. The idea of these is that a theatre full of patrons will be so busy hooting with hilarity, some breathing-room should be left so that they don't miss the next crucial line in the script. This probably works well in a test-screening full of cast and crew, although in a provincial cinema with five other patrons (and worse still, in your own living room) the movie will play like it's been edited by someone suffering a blunt-force head trauma.

MARATHON

That said, the film's heart is in the right place on an emotional level. There are chuckles and smiles to be had, there are few sharp edges and there's a concerted effort to sneak in various social issues without lecturing the audience (even if those issues are treated so non-confrontationally that they amount to box-ticking). The scenery is gorgeous, the cast are bringing their best energy and other than the struggling mechanics of making a coherent movie there's little to find objectionable*³.

But ultimately, as the credits roll you're left with the feeling that Nia Vardalos has sat looking at a bank statement and wondered '...well, what did Toula and Ian do this week?'. And then she watched a couple of Mamma Mia flicks and realised the answer might involve HBO paying for a jolly over to Europe...

*¹ Look I know this feels like a low blow, but with the first movie landing in 2002, a follow-up fourteen years later and then waiting another seven for the threequel, Greek Wedding is a series so infrequent that its supporting cast are literally dying of old-age between instalments. And while that's certainly not shied-away from in this movie, Vardalos still didn't have the cojones to call it My Big Fat Greek Funeral. Maybe next time... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² The weirdest offset might be the combination of the film's full 2.35:1 aspect ratio, with opening titles that look like a mid-budget 1990s TV sitcom. Who signed this off? ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ I know it seems like I'm being overly harsh to a perfectly harmless little comfort-food movie which was never intended for me in the first place, but for what it's worth Mrs Blackout enjoyed this even less than I did, and I only went to see it because she wanted to... ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Cert: 12A / 94 mins / Dir. Kirk Jones / Trailer



Because the received wisdom is that when you release a big movie for the boys, you need to put something on for the girls to watch, too. The girls who don't want to watch Henry Cavill's torso I suppose, but hey, we could easily have gotten Tina Fey shrieking through some Universal-spawned neon nightmare instead, so this film's already at least one point ahead ;)

Yes, the Portokalos family are back, louder and more intrusive than ever, as Nia and Ian's daughter Paris reaches college-age, and Nia's parents find out they were never legally married fifty years ago. So warm-hearted bickering all round, then...

As the writer producer and headlining star, Nia Vardalos' observational family material is very good (as in the first film), but the overall structure is more shambolic here than I think anyone intended. While there's a far more solid storyline this time around, procedings are still hampered by sub-plots treated as muttered asides. Set eighteen-or-so years after My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula and Ian are apparently in some mid-life rut according to the script, but this only illustrated by characters periodically mentioning it, rather than - y'know - acting. Toula's dad's 50-year grudge with his brother in Greece is mentioned in one scene, then resolved in less than a minute, three scenes later. Toula's cousin Angelo is revealed as gay in one scene, then his anxieties about coming out to traditionalist family are brushed away in less than a minute the next time it's referenced.

Now it'll come as no great surprise for you to learn that I didn't watch the first movie's spin-off sitcom, so I don't know if any of these more throwaway moments are tying up loose ends from that (although it's thirteen years old now and there were only seven episodes, so I'd be surprised if that's the case). This really feels like a bunch of TV episodes condensed down into a movie, and with only an hour and a half, things get slightly cluttered, and not in a 'crazy' way.

But ultimately MBFGW2 is a bit fluffy, a lot undemanding and refreshingly non-cynical without resorting to tweeness. The film spends a lot of time coasting on charm, but there are plenty of wry smiles, quite a few chuckles and a couple of good guffaws*.

The film's not going to push any boundaries or redefine the genre, but it's very comfortable in its own skin, which helps a lot. But a sequel this chronologically separated from its forebear shouldn't feel so much like filler…

Well y'know. The first one.



It won't really add any extra layer to the experience.



MBFGW2 sets its sights relatively low, so yes.



Not really.



Not really.



Not at all.



Level 2: John Corbett (yes, Ronnie's son) appeared in 2008's Street Kings, as did Mr Forest Whitaker who should be turning up somewhere in Star Wars: Rogue One later this year.






*¹ Mind you, Mrs Blackout and myself were lucky enough to be seated directly in front of patrons who had evidently never seen a comedy so utterly hilarious before. Seriously, it was like being sat in a room with two haunted laugh-bags. Sometimes this would be at one of the jokes, at others it was just at one of the characters walking through a doorway (no, really). The funnier the joke, the more terrified the rest of the audience was.


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.