Focker-In-Law Brings De Niro and Stiller Back on November 25, and Ariana Grande Faces the Lie Detector

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Sixteen years after Little Fockers, Universal is bringing the family back. Focker-In-Law opens on November 25, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, which is exactly where the first film opened in 2000. John Hamburg, who co-wrote all three earlier films, wrote this one and directs it, and Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro are back as Greg and Jack.

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The twist is generational. Greg's son Henry is now grown up and bringing a fiancee home to meet the family, and the fiancee is Ariana Grande as Olivia Jones, a triathlete. So Greg, who spent three films being tortured by his father-in-law, is now the father-in-law. The trailer makes the obvious joke early, with Grande strapped to the lie detector in Jack's basement, and it still works.

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Owen Wilson, Teri Polo and Blythe Danner are all back, which matters more than it sounds. The films were always about Greg being the only normal person in a house of eccentrics, and without Pam and Dina the dynamic falls apart. A second trailer in September gave Grande a lot more to do, and she is funnier than I expected, mostly because she plays it straight against Stiller's panic.

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The risk with legacy comedy sequels is that they become tribute acts. The Naked Gun this year got around that by handing the lead to someone new. Focker-In-Law is trying to do both, keep the originals and add a new foil, and the trailer suggests Hamburg knows which jokes are worn out. Nobody says milking a cat. Yet.

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It opens against Hershey and Disney's Hexed on the same day, which is a crowded Wednesday. Is this a Thanksgiving-weekend film for you, or did Little Fockers kill the franchise for good?