10 Film Franchises You Really Should Stop Watching After The First Movie
3. Meet The Parents
The quintessential, painfully-awkward-to-watch romantic comedy, Meet the Parents, follows Gaylord 'Greg' Focker (Ben Stiller) as he tries to endear himself to his prospective fiancé's sociopathic father, Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro). The movie featured several cringe-worthy (in the best possible sense) scenes, such as Greg telling the Byrnes family about how to milk a cat in order to prove that he grew up on a farm (he didn't), or Greg setting a hand-crafted altar on fire while sneaking a cigarette on the roof of Jack's house.
The film inspired NBC's 2002 Meet My Folks reality show, which even borrowed a gag from the movie (Jack's human lie detector test). Following the enormous success of Meet the Parents, director Jay Roach and the core cast were brought back for 2004's Meet the Fockers, a movie that contained just one chuckle-worthy joke (the title) and none of the comedic magic of its predecessor.
Despite coming to a common understanding at the end of Meet the Parents, Jack was still trying to make Greg's life miserable throughout this film, making the character come across as more of an irrational lunatic than simply a very overprotective father. Meanwhile, the great Dustin Hoffman was poorly cast as Greg's father, while Barbara Streisand, an actor known for having extremely high standards when it comes to the movies she chooses, shockingly found something meritorious about this script.
The franchise followed up one disappointment with another: 2010's horrendous Little Fockers. Roach was gone at this point, replaced by Paul Weitz, as was the last of any comedic value that came from the playing off the word "Focker" (DeNiro anointing Greg the 'Godfocker' was especially groan-worthy).
Do yourself a favor and stop watching after meeting the Byrnes family.