User reviews

My basic opinion of this movie is that it is a crappy American feel good comedy. It is simply about a man who is going through another mid-life crisis as his daughter, who was married in the first movie, has a baby in this one. The catch is that his wife is also pregnant and with the irony really dripping, both of them have their babies within minutes of each other. As such the kid's auntie is exactly the same age as him (it won't happen to me, though it is possible).

When I watch this movie I think to myself, this guy really doesn't have problems. There are people out there that have much more serious problems than he does. He admits to having a beautiful wife who loves him, owns his own home (or did), has a great job and great kids - and he thinks he has problems. Maybe the whole comedy is in the fact that he is worrying about absolutely nothing, but seriously, when I watch this movie, I simply shake my head and think that the guy is a loser. I really don't think it is all that funny.

In fact, the guy has much more serious problems. He seems to be spending an awful lot of money, and is going to find himself in a huge amount of debt, and he doesn't seem to ever be at work. My question is not only where he gets his money, but where he gets the collateral for all of the purchases he is making. He buys back his house for an extra $100,000 on top of what he sold it for, and really, how can he seriously afford it.

Okay, it wasn't all that bad. As a movie is was made well, and I did chuckle a few times. But in reality, this guy is a serious loser because he has more than anybody could possibly ask for, and he is worried about growing old. Hell, we all grow old, but he has experience more than what a lot of us have already had. Instead of worrying about growing old, the twit should look back on his life and be thankful for the blessings that God has already given him as opposed to forgetting all of that and winging about his age.

The 1991 Steve Martin comedy proved out to be popular enough to earn a sequel, much like the original Father of the Bride of 1950. All of the main cast of the first film returns in a story where the eponymous father George Banks (Martin) has gotten over the stressful wedding of his daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams) and her fiancé Bryan (George Newbern). However, when she breaks the big news about her pregnancy to the family, the grandpa-to-be becomes anxious about getting older and starts proving his youthfulness in various ways, such as selling the family's beloved house to a greedy real estate developer Habib (Eugene Levy). Life has more in store for George and his wife Nina (Diane Keaton) though, as it soon turns out that Annie's is not the only pregnancy in the family.

Again, the humour is best when it relies on Steve Martin's comical talent and charisma instead of craziness and exaggeration. Unfortunately, adhering to the rule of always making sequels bigger and louder, the writers have given more screen time to the unbelievably annoying wedding planner Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) whose noisy and flamboyant scenes are certainly the weakest parts of the whole movie. The fussy bumbling caused by the impending childbirths at the end is also rather annoying and unimaginative. I think the movie works best during the more subtle scenes, such as Martin making uncomfortable faces while hiding his nervousness or arguing about the baby's surname with the overjoyed family during a dinner.

Besides the run-of-the-mill jokes, the movie also shamelessly wallows in impenetrable sentimentalism of the newborns' adorability. Especially the music is so unbelievably schmaltzy that it was really getting on my nerves while watching; can't the filmmakers just trust their material's appeal without burying it under a sweety-tweety sugar mountain? Nevertheless, despite the predictability of the plot and the not-so-hilarious jokes, George Banks is a very likable character and Steve Martin is at home in the role, so those who enjoyed the first movie will probably like this one too – the basic building blocks of the story have not been changed at all.

I really tried to watch this movie with an open mind. Ever since watching Diane Keaton in "The First Wives Club", I fell in love with her. She is a brilliant actress and a somewhat strange individual which makes her very compelling. The sad part about it is, not even she can save this movie. I really enjoyed the first "Father of the Bride" but found this one to be almost annoying. The movie was very predictable and humorless. Steve Martin was very disappointing....so sad...