Starring: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Louis Mandylor, Michael Constatine, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin, Elena Kampouris
Directed by: Kirk Jones
Written by: Nia Vardalos
Reviewed by: Joshua Ochoa
[rating: 3/5]
Comedy sequels are hard to do, Zoolander 2 proved that just a few weeks ago. This time we have My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, released fourteen years after the first film came out. It has been a long road, the first film was a surprise smash.
This time around Toula (Nia Vardalos) is the parent unable to let her daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) go. Paris is coming to the end of High School and is feeling smothered by her family so she applies to Universities in different cities. Toula’s parents Maria and Gus also find out that the priest that officiated their wedding back during the war forgot to sign their marriage certificate so now they must get married again.
Comedy sequels (actually any kind of sequel) fall into many trappings and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is no different. Sequels always seem to take the small touches that make the first film good and turn it up to eleven, oversaturating things that should only be taken in small doses. The film also reuses too many jokes from the first film rather make new ones and they don’t hit as hard as they did first time around.
The movie also has too much going going on, making the plot rather muddled when it really needed a lot more focus. You have Toula dealing with her relationship with her daughter, Gus and Maria planning their wedding and then Toula and Ian trying to rekindle their marriage’s romance. Add to that several other subplots and you aren’t giving enough time for each storyline to develop in the best way.
But, I still enjoyed the film. This isn’t the type of movie where the plot is the most important aspect. The most important part of the film is the family and the cast just work so well together. They love, they bicker and create very stressfully/embarrassing moments for Paris to deal with. For anyone that has been a teenager it will definitely be cringe inducing.
A reasonable portion of the jokes are funny. Sure their hand is overplayed at times, but there are still many laughs to be had and even some heartstrings to be pulled. The film is well shot and well paced. It has its flaws but just like our own families we can still enjoy our time with the movie even with its problems. It’s sweet, a little muddled, but, at the end of the day, it delivers on the feel good film it promises to be, even if it isn’t the breath of fresh air that the first film was.
