Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 92 mins
UK Distributor: Universal Pictures
UK Release Date: 8 September 2023
WHO’S IN MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3?
Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Louis Mandylor, Elena Kampouris, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin, Gia Carides, Joey Fatone, Maria Vacratsis, Melina Kotselou, Elias Kacavas, Gerry Mendicino
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Nia Vardalos (director, writer), Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson (producers), Stephanie Economou (composer), Barry Peterson (cinematographer), Annette Davey and Craig Herring (editors)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
The Portokalos family heads to Greece for a reunion…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3?
And here I was, thinking that The Nun II was the week’s most unnecessary sequel. In fact, after seeing My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, was I a bit too harsh on that other movie? I feel like maybe I didn’t appreciate what I had with the Conjuring spin-off, because as underwhelming as it may have been, there’s no way it can be a worse sequel, and a worse overall movie, than this one.
Honestly, who asked for a third movie in the My Big Fat Greek Wedding series? Sure, the first film was a huge box office success back in 2002, grossing $368 million worldwide against a $5 million budget (and remains one of, if not the most profitable films of all time), but the attempts to turn it into a franchise have proven far less fruitful, with a short-lived sitcom spin-off that was cancelled only seven episodes in, and a 2016 sitcom-minded sequel that was met with much more negative feedback than its predecessor. Why, then, did original writer, lead actor and, for the first time in this series, director Nia Vardalos feel it was right to create yet another chapter in a story that hardly anyone was clamouring for? And why, oh God why, did she have to make it such an unbearably awful note to (hopefully) end this series on?
The film begins as Vardalos’ Toula Portokalos and her extended Greek-American family, including her non-Greek husband Ian (John Corbett), are mourning the loss of their patriarch Gus (who was played in the previous films by the late Michael Constantine). When the family receives invitations to a reunion in Gus’ old village in Greece, several family members – including Toula, Ian, their college-bound daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris), Toula’s brother Nick (Louis Mandylor) and Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) – fly out to the country, only to find that the village is virtually abandoned, save for a handful of locals and its spritely young mayor Victory (Melina Kotselou), but they still manage to discover some of the few remaining charms of the area.
You’d think that being in a new location with new characters to meet would lend this sequel plenty of opportunities to branch out in terms of its comedy and drama, but very quickly it becomes apparent that Vardalos didn’t think further than “let’s bring this Greek family to Greece” for its main concept, because this is a film that appears to have been made up entirely on the spot. There’s never a point in this script where it feels like there’s any kind of structured narrative, because a majority of the scenes are comprised of things just happening, regardless of whether or not they have any bearing on the main plot, such as an encounter with a beachside monk that goes almost nowhere, or a spontaneous marriage between two young locals (because they had to have a big fat Greek wedding at some point in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, I guess). Somehow, everything and nothing seems to be happening at the same time, and even with full creative control Vardalos cannot seem to make it all flow naturally, or at the very least as though there’s something connecting everything rather than just letting it all flap endlessly in the wind.
This is also the kind of film where, much like a sitcom, any and all moments of conflict are resolved or ignored entirely within minutes. For example, one character is revealed to be far behind on their academic studies, and it’s built up to be a rather explosive reveal later on, but then it’s just blurted out of nowhere with no major repercussions afterward. There are also a few moments where it looks like Vardalos’ character is being stalked by a seemingly menacing man who looks in through her window at night and later follows her around the town, but then when it’s revealed who he actually is, he is literally welcomed with open arms, and all is well again. The writing here is so paper-thin that it doesn’t bother to explain why he was initially looking and acting so creepy beforehand if his intentions were noble, but then again not even the returning characters get proper moments to be actual people instead of the loud and often obnoxious stereotypes they’re portrayed as, in a film that often feels like someone’s low-rent Mamma Mia! knock-off (though at least in those films, they would stop to sing ABBA numbers every so often).
Sadly, Vardalos’ unfocused direction only exacerbates the structureless and drama-free script with its lack of consistency. Characters will just randomly enter scenes as though they’ve just materialised out of thin air – there’s a moment where Vardalos herself will have appeared in a scene, and then she’s suddenly beside a pair of other characters in an entirely different location, without so much of an indication that at least some time has passed in between – while other moments will abruptly end right in the middle of a conversation before moving rapidly on to the next thing. Although, that could be down to how this is a horribly edited film, possibly one of the worst-edited wide release films this year, with multiple scenes blatantly trimmed down to their barest essentials, in the process removing any sense of pacing and comedic timing that might have saved a number of otherwise confusing moments. There are also a few pretty bad performances from some members of the cast – but not Vardalos and John Corbett, who still manage to have some sweet moments together – which take you even further out of the movie due to how unconvincing they’re coming across, though it’s entirely possible that those underperformers weren’t given viable enough direction to flesh out their thinly-written parts.
It’s an embarrassment of a movie, even more so when you look back at how this film series originally started out. That first film was a charming, sweet, and highly amusing rom-com that won over critics and audiences alike, and even scored Vardalos an Oscar nomination for her original script, but everything that came after it – including and especially this film – has devolved into basic sitcom numbness, the kind that would make even Chuck Lorre roll his eyes over their lameness. This, by comparison, is grossly incompetent in its writing which fails to even come close to the thoughtful nature of that original film, and with filmmaking that has such little artistic merit that you start to wonder if, maybe, Vardalos and her creation desperately need some marriage counselling.
SO, TO SUM UP…
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is an embarrassing shell of the original Oscar-nominated rom-com hit, with writer-director Nia Vardalos’ undercooked script and inconsistent filmmaking rendering this a depressingly laugh-free and charmless pile of trash.
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