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Grade: B

Verdict: Not a bad family reunion to attend — from the safe distance of your theater seat.

By JILL VEJNOSKA
Cox News Service

What's a little sodium pentothal among family?

Technically, Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller) isn't family yet when his future father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), shoots him up with a load of truth serum in the bathroom of a Tiki-tacky South Florida restaurant. The ensuing scene is among the funniest in the reliably funny "Meet the Fockers" as Greg comandeers the microphone at his engagement party and, maybe for the first time, tells the truth about everything. Including his reason for putting off marrying sweet-tempered Pam (Teri Polo) for so long: Essentially, he didn't want their two sets of parents to meet.

Who could blame Stiller the actor if he felt similar qualms about making this sequel to "Meet the Parents"? In that 2000 hit where Greg weekend-ed with Pam's parents (Blythe Danner returns here as Jack's forbearing wife, Dina), Stiller really only had to avoid being completely overshadowed by De Niro as the retired CIA agent whose control freak tendencies and deep suspicion of outsiders seemed to suggest a future gig running North Korea. "Meet the Fockers" would have all that again, plus the considerable, colorful, "You're blocking my Oscar, 'Zoolander' Boy," presences of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Greg's let-it-all-hang-out parents, Bernie and Roz. How great would that be?

Answer: A lot. This movie, which brings all the principals together for a few days of wedding planning and culture clashing, is all Fockered up, but in a good way. By moving the action to "Focker Isle," a trippy, tropically overgrown Cocoanut Grove homestead where the wine spritzers and "whoa, too much information"-style conversation flow freely, the filmmakers haven't just found an amusing contrast to the first film's carefully controlled suburban Long Island setting. They've also managed to avoid the common sequel disaster of spending too much time going down the same road as before (going to Europe didn't fool us, "Ocean's Twelve").

Instead of merely revisiting the first movie's amusing central conceit — Greg's almost pathological and probably futile quest to toe Jack's perfectionist, paranoia-fueled line — the sequel expands on it in a way that's funny but also poignant for how it points up the one unassailable truth about most families: They're not perfect, but for you, they'll try. And however badly it all turns out, they're yours.

Streisand and especially Hoffman are a hoot as parents so comfortable in their barely updated '60s skin (they still hang a hat on the doorknob when they're having sex), they can't imagine why Greg would want them to tone it down if only for this weekend. Or sense just how comically inept they are at doing so. Even Jack shows a willingness to get outside his comfort zone somewhat, gathering up the family (including "Little Jack," his other daughter's infant son) and heading for Florida in an R.V. — albeit one with a "Spy vs. Spy"-worthy nerve center hidden beneath the floorboards that he'll employ to try to torpedo the S.S. Gaylord one more time.

Jack's barely parked the R.V. outside the Focker house when Greg's already inside frantically hiding books like "One Hour Orgasm" belonging to sex therapist Roz.

Greg hopes to keep his mother's profession a secret, although it's hard to know why, given a running subplot about Little Jack and breastfeeding that's one of the film's weakest elements (the numerous, decreasingly clever-seeming "Focker" puns are the other).

But actually, we do know why. "Meet the Parents" was all about watching Greg twist himself into knots for Jack. There's more of that in "Meet the Fockers," plus the added fun of seeing Roz and Bernie innocently unravel Greg's hard work with their "it's all good" tugs.

"I didn't know they made ninth-place ribbons," Jack tight-lippedly observes when Bernie insists on showing off the house's "Wall of Gaylord," complete with Greg's 1978 Hebrew Camp certificate in breadmaking and other evidence of his (to anyone but his parents') raging imperfectionism.

"Oh, they got 'em all the way up to 10th," Bernie beams.

Can this marriage be saved?

Can "Meet the Grandparents" be far behind?