Review: 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3' recycles the same jokes, but star/director Nia Vardalos can't bring back the old charm

Oh, to be blessed with the confidence of Nia Vardalos — confidence to squeeze a third screenplay, for “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,” out of the same set of jokes about the loud behavior and boisterousness of Greek people, without betraying any hint of how hackneyed it’s all become.

Vardalos directs this third comedy centered around the Portokalos family of Chicago. Vardalos’ character, Toula, is now the head of the family — though she doesn’t admit it — since the death of her father, the Windex-spraying Gus (played in the first two films by Michael Constantine, who died in 2021). 

Toula and her non-Greek husband Ian (John Corbett) are dealing with generational issues at both ends. Toula’s mother, Maria (Lainie Kazan, who appears briefly), is in the middle stages of dementia. Meanwhile, Toula and Ian’s daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), is away at college at NYU, and Toula suspects something’s amiss — but Paris won’t say what.

The family, Toula says in an opening voiceover, is scattered these days, and needs something to bring them all together. That something, conveniently, is an invitation to a massive reunion in Gus’ hometown in Greece. Toula, Ian, Paris, Toula’s boorish brother Nick (Louis Mandylor), and favorite aunts Voula (Andrea Martin) and Frieda (Maria Vacratsis) are all on the plane to Athens — as is Aristotle (Elias Kacavas), a hunky young man Paris briefly dated and rejected, whom Voula, true to her meddling ways, has hired as an assistant.

Toula’s goal on this trip is to fulfill one of her father’s last wishes: To deliver his journal to his three friends from the old village. Toula’s counting on the reunion to bring everyone together, so she’s dismayed when she learns that the village’s young and ridiculously optimistic mayor, Victory (Melina Kotselou, in her first movie role), hasn’t gathered all the village’s former residents as expected.

As Toula searches for her father’s childhood friends, a village of sitcom-level subplots plays out. Paris tries to avoid Aristotle, and avoid telling her parents what’s happening at college. Alexandra (Anthi Andreopoulou), the village’s oldest resident, reveals a family secret to Toula, while Qamar (Stephanie Nur), the Syrian refugee who’s “like a daughter” to Alexandra, has a secret of her own. Nick is, for reasons that become painfully obvious, is looking for the oldest tree in the area. Ian befriends a monk (Dimos Filippas) living on the beach. And, eventually, Toula’s cousins Nikki (Gia Carides) and Angelo (Joey Fatone) get pulled back into the mix.

Mostly, it’s all a flimsy excuse for the characters — and the actors — to take a vacation in picturesque Greece on Focus Features’ dime. Of all of the disappointments in Vardalos’ clumsy directing, the worst may be how she rushes through the travelogue portions of the movie, so that the audience can’t enjoy the sights.

Vardalos’ script tells the same jokes from the first two films, including the Windex and every Greek’s inability to accept Ian’s vegetarian diet. Even a reliable laugh-getter like Martin is left with little to work with. The one bright spot in the movie is the newcomer Kotselou, playing the perpetually sunny (and, it’s suggested, nonbinary) mayor with an energy and exuberance the rest of this recycled sequel is lacking.

——

‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’

★1/2

Opens Friday, September 8, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for suggestive material and some nudity. Running time: 91 minutes.