The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Little Fockers at 5:40 PM

THE MOVIELINE NINE  ||  BY BRIAN CLARK  || 

Just days after critics finished eviscerating Yogi Bear, they’ve unsheathed their knives again for the Meet the Parents threequel Little Fockers. Some holiday! Currently the film is hanging out at a 9% fresh rating on Rotten Tomates, which is 5% lower than Yogi Bear. Time will tell whether Gulliver’s Travels can top them both, but for now let’s take a look at harshest Fockers reviews, if only to see how many puns critics can make on the word “fock.”

9. “Little Fockers is focking dismal. Clearly nothing but a paycheck project for all concerned, this is definitely the least and hopefully the last of a franchise that started amusingly enough a decade ago but has now officially overstayed its welcome.” — Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

8. “Grit your teeth through the fairly short though agonizing duration of its stay. Then wave goodbye in relief as its huge cast of characters departs like the annoying in-laws they are…Little Fockers is tasteless trash, filled with abysmally unfunny gags involving vomit, enemas, erectile dysfunction and the like as De Niro’s Byrnes clan and Stiller’s Focker family stumble through another mindless reunion.” — Dave Germain, AP

7. “For moviegoers who were around in the 1970s, here’s the saddest part: Harvey Keitel shows up in the small role of Greg’s house contractor and gets a one-scene face-off with De Niro’s Jack. The two men circle each other for a few seconds, like pitbulls descended from Brando, and then it’s over before it begins. “Little Fockers” is the sixth movie the actors have appeared in together and it’s easily the laziest and least; what started with Mean Streets and Taxi Driver’ has come down to … this. They should have just brought in Pacino and called itMother Fockers. Note to the producers: I’m kidding.” — Ty Burr, Boston Globe

6. “Little Fockers, the abysmal second sequel, literally has nowhere to go but up some poor guy’s ass. Barely 10 minutes have elapsed before Ben Stiller, still a male nurse (snicker, snicker), and Jessica Alba, a flirtatious pharmaceutical saleswoman, are working an enema tube in some disgusting dance of seduction. From there, the film piles on erectile-dysfunction jokes, blood, vomit, farts—anything to keep this zombie franchise within the general realm of mainstream comedy.” — Scott Tobias, The Onion AV Club

5. “…In Little Fockers everyone has turned into a gross caricature of a human being, either unbearably mean or lascivious or hammy to the point that you actively root for their demise. You can’t get out of their company fast enough.” —Katey Rich, Cinema Blend

4. “Despite its title, Little Fockers barely features children. Other things it’s lacking include laughs, coherence, and a reason to exist, what with Paul Weitz’s latest installment in this family-friction franchise simply rehashing the dynamics of the original Meet the Parents, except with more cock jokes.” — Nick Schager,Slant Magazine

3. “I once saw a high school production of Grease where they had some technical difficulties and had to stall for time, so the director sent the main actors onstage, in character, to improvise a scene. Little Fockers feels like 100 minutes of that.” — Eric D. Snider, Cinematical

2. “This series needs to focking stop.” — Matt Pais, Metromix

1. “How bad is the third installment of the Meet the Parents franchise? So bad it makes the perfectly ordinary Meet the Fockers look Oscar-worthy. So bad the Hollywood Foreign Press Association should nominate it for a musical/comedy Golden Globe. So bad that this bland, pointless sequel features a gratuitous scene where the stunning Jessica Alba — one of many new faces added to an already overstuffed ensemble — strips down to her lacy undergarments, belly-flops into a backyard pit, rolls around in the mud, and I still can’t recommend you pay to see it.” — Sean O’Connell, The Washington Post