Back in 2002, Nia Vardalos was launched to fame as the screenwriter and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The surprise box office hit earned $241 million domestically and another $127 million overseas, making it the highest-grossing rom-com of all time. Additionally, it earned Vardalos an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. Twenty-one years, a sequel and short-lived sitcom later, the Portokalos family is back, and they’re headed to the motherland. Critics had the opportunity to screen My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 ahead of its September 8 release, and they had some pretty strong opinions.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 will return much of the cast from the first two movies, save for Michael Constantine, who died in 2021. Nia Vardalos said the actor gave his blessing for them to continue the franchise without him, and she wrote the script to reflect that. It sounds like we can expect Toula’s father to be honored in a big way, as the large and outspoken family makes its way to Greece for a big reunion. Let’s see what the critics are saying.
Samantha Bergeson of IndieWire gives the new romantic comedy a D+, saying the film struggles to find the right tone, with jokes falling flat while serious topics like Alzheimer’s and xenophobia “are downright hilarious” in their delivery. The critic continues:
The film has tonally far-too-light nods to the refugee crisis in Greece and the backlash to Ukrainian and Syrian refugees in the country, as well as Toula and her siblings struggling through grief after losing their father, culturally the patriarch of any Greek family. Vardalos decides not to go there, and it does a great disservice to what could have been a fun yet emotionally resonant film. Instead, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 goes for the cheap laughs and the tacky attempts at pulling heartstrings. Hopefully, this is the end of the My Big Fat Greek anything, weddings be damned.
Like the first two, Nia Vardalos wrote this one but, this time, she’s also directing — and it’s her second directorial effort after 2009’s I Hate Valentine’s Day (which also starred her and John Corbett). Courtney Howard of Variety agrees with the critic above that Vardalos’ lack of experience behind the camera shows. No amount of Windex can save this franchise, Howard says, writing:
Revolving around our beloved, put-upon protagonist returning to her deceased father’s homeland to perform one final favor, this threequel is surprisingly lifeless and almost laugh-less. To an alarming degree, writer-director Nia Vardalos undervalues the worth of her own creation, recoiling from much of the story’s earned emotional pull or any sense of genuine interpersonal strife that doesn’t take more than a scene to resolve.
Jocelyn Noveck of the AP rates the new sequel 2 stars out of 4, noting that Nia Vardalos’ formula feels ancient, but the critic admits that fans of the first two movies will likely be willing to overlook the clunkier elements of the script. Noveck says:
It’s a formula that lost luster with that first, deflating sequel in 2016, a whole 14 years later. And if My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 felt like a pale imitation of the buoyant original, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 feels sorta like a pale imitation of that pale imitation. Or, to analogize with a favored franchise food item: like a thrice-warmed piece of baklava.
Jen Chaney of Vulture doesn’t hold back, saying that this 91-minute film feels longer than a screening of Oppenheimer. If a joke is mildly amusing, the critic says, it will be repeated until you want to jam your head into the cup holder attached to your seat at the theater. In Chaney’s words:
The scenery in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, largely shot in Corfu and Athens, is gorgeous but everything else about the film’s construction is an absolute mess. Vardalos, serving as director as well as writer for the first time, should have a better sense of these characters and their journey than anyone. Yet this third chapter in the Greek Wedding saga feels less like a cohesive movie and more like a bunch of scenes that just happened to be placed side-by-side with no sense of broader themes or flow.
That’s not to say it’s all bad. While Justin Lowe of AV Club admits it’s fair to question whether we really need another movie in this franchise — particularly after the underwhelming 2016 sequel — the critic says that answer is, for the most part, a yes. Lowe gives the movie a B-, writing:
While it’s highly unlikely this installment will achieve the box office returns of the original, it’s the best-crafted film in the series, thanks in part to Vardalos taking the reins as director. Leaning into her experience as a screenwriter, Vardalos balances comedy and emotion, and her familiarity with the cultural setting, as well as her affinity for the sprawling cast, reap dividends onscreen. The result is a level of authenticity and depth that wasn’t as evident in the first two outings.
Unfortunately, it seems like the critical consensus falls more in line with the negative reviews above, with the flick currently holding a 26 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 46 critics so far. However, fans of the first two movies shouldn’t hesitate to head out to the theater to draw their own conclusions, and they can do that now, as My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3hit the big screen on September 8. Be sure to check our schedule of 2023 new movie releases to see everything else that’s coming soon.