The Ninja Film Review: The Return of Windex and the Bundt Cake
Created | Updated Apr 17, 2016
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The Ninja Film Review: The Return of Windex and the Bundt Cake
Back in 2002, it seems, everyone enjoyed My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the 'sleeper' success comedy about a ridiculous but utterly believable extended family in Chicago. Nia Vardalos, the writer and star, knew what she was talking about: the film was about her own family and her own wedding. Audiences adored this movie, and even curmudgeonly reviewers gave it their thumbs-up. (Thumbs-ups?) The snooty Washington Post admitted Greek Wedding had 'a tremendously sweet spirit' and added somewhat begrudgingly, 'There is so much good will here, you are charmed as much as tickled into laughing.' One thing the original film seemed to show was that contrary to Hollywood wisdom (I know, that's an oxymoron), ordinary people are interesting in films.
Skip ahead fourteen years. The sequel has just come out. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is getting reviews like 'one laugh-track away from a bad sitcom.' This from the same Washington Post, who also call it 'a big fat letdown'. The reason? Largely because 'the characters have aged, but the jokes remain the same.' Well, duh. Your family isn't like that?
So, the second film is being blamed for being what it is: a follow-up to the first film, with the same characters a bit down the road, doing what they do, and essentially muddling through the same amusing but predictable situations? Well, yes. That appears to be the gist of it. In other words: that may be the way you live your lives, humans, but by the little golden statue, don't you dare make movies that way.
Whatever.
Personally, I enjoyed My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 every bit as much as I did the first one. The cast are just as funny, the observations of ordinary human behaviour just as apt. I admit I got nostalgic for Greece, where I used to live, when the wedding party started dancing to bouzouki music. Sorry. And frankly, it was a nice break from all the heroic action, nail-biting thrillers, and intellectual exercises one usually gets on the big screen these days.
Mind you, the three of us – me, Elektra, and my sister – were practically alone in the multiplex. (It was a midweek matinee, after all.) And yeah, we all got senior discounts, so hey, what do you expect? Maybe the movie just entertains Old People. We're not quite as decrepit as Michael Constantine, who plays grandfather Gus Portokalos (and yes, that name is funnier if you speak Greek). But we do remember when the actor was much younger and played a television school principal, and we still like him. We laughed all the way through the film. So sue us.
The Windex is still being used for everything. Every word in English is still being derived from Greek by Gus's weasel logic. And the bundt cakes still have flowers in to disguise their holes. Ian and his dad are still Scots-dour and Aunt Voula is still a public embarrassment. But hey, it was nice to see them all together again and to know that Dancing Zorba's restaurant has survived the recession. And even if [SPOILER ALERT] they aren't all descended from Alexander the Great, the Portokalos family has a place in the comedy pantheon.
So go watch it if you're in the mood for a laugh and not feeling hypercritical. If you must be intellectual next weekend, we suppose there's always Batman v Superman while you're waiting for the next Statham opus.
