Cringe movies bring in the big bucks at the cinema. Who knows whether its the squirming anticipation or the enjoyment at the payoff but the box-office figures prove time and time again that schadenfreude sells. Case in point was the first Meet the Parents movie. From the word go, you know almost every single thing under the sun is going to go wrong. But through all the seat shifting and peeking through your hands, there is still some level of enjoyment as you wait for the moment when everything is going to come good again.

Meet the Fockers on the other hand didn’t work so well. It was a rare slip for Dustin Hoffman and even Barbra Streisand couldn’t lift the spirits of a film that got a little too cocky at it’s own success. Somehow all the jokes that worked so well in the first film didn’t quite cut the mustard this time around. The enjoyable jitters just became a series of uncomfortable moments that jarred. But among all the cheese and schmaltz there was still a smidgen of the charm that made the first film a hit. So where does that leave the third film? In a bit of a trilogy wasteland to be perfectly honest.

Gaylord (Greg) and Pam Focker (Ben Stiller and Teri Polo) have settled firmly into domesticity and have two children – twins, apparently, even though they look like they're about two or three years apart (this is “explained” but I didn’t buy it). Family patriarch Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) is furious after golden boy Dr Bob (the sister’s fiancé from the first film) has divorced his precious little girl. Obsessed with geneology, and suffering from occasional heart palpitations, Jack is worried that no one will be able to lead the family in the way that he has for so long. He reluctantly turns to Greg, telling him to step up and become the “Godfocker”.

Yep. The. God. Focker. Cue Stiller acting like Don Corleone.

And the Focker jokes roll thick and fast from here. Over and over. I was pretty Focking tired of it by the end. See what I did there? Not really funny, was it? Now film it, repeat it, and make a movie out of it.

The delicious squirmyness of the first film has disappeared and is replaced by jokes so badly telegraphed I knew they were coming before I even bought my popcorn combo. You know the second they introduce a lizard, and Jack explains he just happens to be afraid of lizards because one laid eggs in his ears in ‘Nam (or whatever) that “madness” will ensue. The Boy even counted down to one of the jokes with such amazing accuracy that I had to ask myself if he’d seen it before. There are enough poop and fart and “ooh he almost said a naughty word but he really didn’t 'cause it's a play on words” moments that it feels like this film has been made for children or teens, rather than the adult audience that the first film courted.

The utterly perplexing thing is that there are SO many stars in this film: De Niro, Stiller, Polo, Streisand, Hoffman, Owen Wilson, Blyth Danner, Jessica Alba, Harvey Keitel, Laura Dern … They all do their job adequately but they have nothing important to do.

It's like there is a house full of stars and nobody's home.