My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is sparse on laughs and heavy on eye rolls

Universal Pictures

Ah, the sweet scent of an unnecessary sequel. Can you smell it? Sometimes it’s obvious, like Home Alone 2 or hundreds of horror movies. Other times it’s Batman Returns, which may not be everyone’s favorite but it’s hard to argue that Batman didn’t have more stories to tell. When My Big Fat Greek Wedding came out, I heard that it might be worth watching through pure word of mouth. This was 2002, fourteen years ago, and I went to see the movie with my family. We had a great time, connecting greatly to the material. I even later purchased the DVD and caught it a few times in rerunning showings on TV.

But recently, I began to feel that perhaps it didn’t hold up so well. Some jokes were still funny, and some characters still engaging, but the underlying romance was kind of bland, despite being (very) loosely based on screenwriter and star Nia Vardalos’ real life story (she married non-Greek actor Ian Gomez who had a small role in the movie). When I first heard about the sequel, I was honestly bewildered. Why was this considered a good idea? I didn’t think it was inherently doomed to be terrible, but they tried something once, with the mandated but terrible TV spin off My Big Fat Greek Life.

I tried to watch it but I only got through one episode. And now it’s fourteen years later in real life. In the movie world, though, it’s a bit different.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 continues the story of the Portokalos clan seventeen (or so) years after the events of the first movie. The movie has three storylines, none of which are particularly inventive. Formerly rebellious Toula (Nia Vardalos), who married white-bread Ian (John Corbett), now have a daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) who’s in high school and looking to apply to colleges. Toula is worried Paris will leave them behind, while Paris is super embarrassed of her comically exaggerated family. Everything the first movie exaggerated becomes paper thin cliché.

While Elena Kampouris does a fine job with her clichéd material, I don’t think Nia Vardolos really pulls any of the complex stuff she wrote for herself. A minor subplot about her finding romance again in married life is pointless, and John Corbett basically just smiles and nods his way through the movie. He’s fine.

The other subplot regards Toula’s parents Gus (Michael Constantine) and Maria (Lainie Kazan) who have discovered that due to a mistake back in Greece, they are technically not married. So … the title of the movie seems to imply another wedding, right? Not so fast, because Maria and Gus are fighting about things that we know won’t matter long.

So it’s another subplot filled with clichés already, and not helped by the utter lack of stakes. There’s never any worry that things won’t work out perfectly. Which, you know, fine, the first movie didn’t really have stakes either. But it wasn’t really pretending to have them either! Of course, Michael Constantine and Lainie Kazan are skilled comic actors, so they wring decent laughs out of a few lines, some of which are legitimately funny.

The tertiary characters are a mix, just like the first movie. Junked in with the “slutty” Nikki (Gia Carides), gruff Angelo (Joey Fatone, who must love getting back into this) and caricature tough guy Nick (Louis Mandylor) is Andrea Martin as Aunt Voula, the shining comic star of the movie. Every terribly written line she’s given is a thousand times better because she’s so good. This was also true in the television show, as I recall. I remember she played Apu’s mother on The Simpsons, which although was whitewashing, she was pretty great then. Oh, and Quark’s mother on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, that really takes me back.

I suppose my point is the movie isn’t 100% bad or anything. I did laugh a couple times, and some of the side characters are legitimately still good. Some cameos are wasted, like John Stamos and Rita Wilson (who are both Greek) but don’t do anything, or Mark Margolis (who is not Greek) who is such a good actor I was infuriated he wasn’t in more of the movie. He was really good. Maybe the movie is worth seeing for him and Andrea Martin. Eh, I dunno. If you liked the first one and you don’t mind a retread of the same stuff, like nothing’s changed in a decade, you may like this one too.

I still don’t understand why it came out now. I guess she’s thought about it for years and just got the gang back together. The first movie was ludicrously successful. Yeah, can’t blame them for trying.

Did you see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2? Tell us what you thought in the comments below.