The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Chisel-jawed stoicism and family secrets
Fotoula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos) and Ian Miller (John Corbett) are happily married with a rebellious 17-year-old daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), who is applying to colleges on the other side of the country so she can wriggle free of her overly protective parents.
Toula’s father Gus (Michael Constantine) is convinced he is a direct descendant of Alexander The Great and researches the family tree.
In the process, he uncovers a long-buried family secret: his marriage certificate to sweetheart Maria (Lainie Kazan) wasn’t signed by the priest so in the eyes of the law, they aren’t husband and wife.
“Who cares? We’re married by time served,” cackles Maria.
Toula, her brother Nick (Louis Mandylor), cousins Nikki (Gia Carides) and Angelo (Joey Fatone), and interfering Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) organise a wedding at short notice so Gus and Maria can tie the knot properly.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 totters down the aisle 14 years after the first film became the most successful romantic comedy of all time.
Sadly, Kirk Jones’ sequel is like a batch of homemade baklava that has been left out too long and gone stale: dry, flaky yet undeniably sweet.
Affection for the original film can only stretch so far and even at a trim 92 minutes, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 feels needlessly padded. Shot first-person perspective like a live-action video game, Ilya Naishuller’s bullet-riddled thriller unfolds literally through the eyes of a vengeful man whose wife has been kidnapped by an evil warlord.
Henry wakes in a laboratory with no memory of the past.
A beautiful woman called Estelle (Haley Bennett), who claims to be Henry’s wife, explains that he has been reanimated from the brink of death as a half-human, half-robotic soldier with superhuman powers.
Before she can explain further, an albino crime lord called Akan (Danila Kozlovsky) storms the facility with his henchmen and abducts Estelle.
Henry escapes by flexing his muscles and he is contacted by a crazed handler called Jimmy (Sharlto Copley), who dispatches the mechanized fighting machine on a series of daring missions, which should reunite him with Estelle.