“MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2” — 2½ stars — Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, Elena Kampouris; PG-13 (some suggestive material); in general release
It has been 14 years since Nia Vardalos welcomed us into the energetic embrace of her Greek family in 2002 with the sleeper hit “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” But her extended clan is still a manic 12-headed Tasmanian Devil of gushing affection and privacy-smashing enthusiasm.
“My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” is a pretty accurate reflection of the chaotic family at its core. There’s plenty of charm and more than a few sweet moments thrown into the mix, and few modern films are such unabashed celebrations of family values. But the final product is a bit of a mess.
Like the original, “Greek Wedding 2” is a humorous examination of matters of love and marriage, seen through a Greek family living in Chicago. In the first film, Toula Portokalos (Vardalos) blossomed from shrew to confident swan, even though her marriage to Ian (John Corbett) took her outside family tradition.
Now, in “Greek Wedding 2,” nearly 20 years have passed. Toula and Ian live next door to her parents, rearing a 17-year-old daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris), who is getting ready to graduate high school and threatening to leave the state to go to college.
It’s easy to sympathize with Paris’s frustration. Not only does she live next door to her grandparents, but her parents are never out of eyesight as well. When she isn’t helping at the family restaurant, Toula constantly volunteers at her daughter’s school, and Ian is the high school’s principal. When a dozen parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins show up at Paris’s college fair, she’s about ready to apply to school on the moon.
Paris’s grandfather Gus (Michael Constantine) would just as soon she find a nice Greek boy and start having babies, but he has romantic problems of his own. Determined to prove he is a direct descendant of Alexander the Great, Gus begins digging into his family history and discovers that the family’s priest never signed his marriage certificate. The gaffe leads to a showdown between Gus and his wife Maria (Lainie Kazan), and the clash of the Greek titans after 50 years of (supposed?) marriage evolves into a “make up” wedding that justifies the film’s title.
At the heart of this chaos is Toula, who finds that obsessing over her daughter and her extended family has alienated her from Ian. Their efforts to find romance almost two decades into their marriage provides a third storyline for an already busy plot.
The results of all this offer up plenty of jokes and sweet moments that will be amusing to anyone who has spent more than an hour with extended family. Many of the bits are held over from the first film. Gus can still trace the root of any word to its Greek origin and still insists that Windex is the cure for all ills. It all feels a bit like a family reunion, for better and for worse.
But for all its sincerity, the chaos reflects “Greek Wedding 2’s” biggest shortcoming: a lack of focus. The first film was a showcase for Toula and her story, with her crazy family as a charming backdrop. But “Greek Wedding 2” tries too hard to cover too much, and the result is a film that feels overcooked in places and far too underdone in others.
“My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" is rated PG-13 for some suggestive material; running time: 94 minutes.
Joshua Terry is a freelance writer and photojournalist who appears weekly on "The KJZZ Movie Show" and also teaches English composition for Salt Lake Community College. Find him online at facebook.com/joshterryreviews.