I won’t really feign the sort of enthusiasm it takes to talk about a movie like this – the third in a series that will see Ben Stiller get punched in the balls a few times and have his childhood embarrassments brought back up at the dinner table. Meet the Fockers was steeped in more of the same enough, but I’m not sure I really care about what might as well be called America’s Funniest Home Videos: The Movie.

Still, Laura Dern is a bad ass.

And that has my interest piqued, because if she brings the same chops she’s famous for (and the same pair of Mom Jeans from Jurassic Park) to her role in Little Fockers, there might be a beacon of light shining from the film.

According to Hollywood Reporter, she’s signed on to play a headmistress at the school the Focker children attend. The usual suspects are back – Robert DeNiro, Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, and Owen Wilson – and they’ll be working alongside Jessica Alba who also recently signed on the dotted line.

I realize I’m being a little too hard on a movie that may very well be decently passable comedy, but the other bright side I see is that John Hamburg is re-writing the script. Not only did he direct I Love You, Man, he also did the heavy lifting in taking its first draft and elevating it to the material that ended up on screen. Not to mention the fact that he wrote the previous two installments which I made fun of earlier – a fact that destroys the point I’m making here.

But still, Meet the Parents was funny. Meet the Fockers was funny-lite. I’ve got my fingers crossed that they’ll be able to get on the upswing with the next one.

Oh, who am I kidding. I hate kids. Adding them into any formula is bad news.

Unless they talk and John Travolta is somehow involved.

What do you think?