My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

Grade: C-

One of the many things the Big Fat Greek trilogy has in common with a sitcom is that no conflict is large enough that it can’t be solved by the end of the “episode.” In My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, they are all pretty much non-starters that get resolved with a simple quick conversation (that could have happened even sooner than they do). The delightful first film was lightning in a bottle. It took the cinema by storm in 2002, earning an Oscar nomination for its screenplay – and I was surprised at how well it worked. It was the most entertaining “TV show as movie” that I might ever see. 14 years later, the family descended on us again in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which showed some signs of wear and tear, but had enough gas in the tank to be enjoyable. It’s diminishing returns with this third installment.

When a sequel takes its characters to a different country, it’s usually an indication that they’ve run out of ideas and are making a desperate last ditch effort to inflate it with freshness. I’m looking at you, Ocean’s Twelve. One of the franchise’s biggest sparks of life was the late Michael Constantine as the elderly patriarch of the Portokalos family. Viewers of the series will remember that he was never too far away from a container of Windex, because he believed it fixed every problem – from unfreezing a car door to clearing up acne. Constantine passed away in August 2021, so the characters in MBFGW3 are flying to Greece to reunite with his childhood best friends, share his old journal with them, and spread his ashes.

Not much happens once they get to the island. A couple of bits get a setup but no payoff. (A character, who doesn’t drink much, takes several shots throughout the day, and then that’s it.) A wedding subplot is provided to us, to fulfill the requirement of the title. I liked seeing the many returning cast members. Nia Vardalos and John Corbett look great for 60 and 62. Though not everyone is well-utilized, there’s still plenty of Andrea Martin to enjoy. As Vardalos and Corbett’s daughter Paris, Elena Kampouris (a teenage in part 2 – early 20s here) is great. It’s too bad her onscreen boyfriend from MBFGW2, Alex Wolff – who has gone on to a hot career – couldn’t return. Maybe he’s a little busy.

What made the first two films successful was the interplay within the large ensemble as the loud, boisterous family. There was something undeniably endearing about them together. Here, with most of the movie taking place in Greece, the family is broken up and scattered throughout the world. However long FaceTime has been around, these folks still haven’t mastered it, and the movie seems to think we’ll still find jokes about it funny. The movie uproots these characters to a beautiful new location, then doesn’t have a clue what to do with them, or the story, beyond that. Lainie Kazan, as the now-widowed matriarch, stripped of her onscreen partner and comedic foil, is wasted. Her inclusion seems to be merely a courtesy, and her scenes probably didn’t take any longer than a week to film. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is a sad whimpering sputter, and I don’t think even Windex could make it better.

Grade: C-