Too many fans seem to be blown away

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

With an extraordinary plot, tons of references. It's a good sequel for an excelent movie, in a world where sequels of comedies are the worst possible.

While this story follows in line from the first one, it is not so connected that knowledge of the first film is necessary to enjoy this one. The movie starts off with some first person narration by Toula (Nia Vardalos) who realizes she is an over protective mother. Her teen daughter (Elena Kampouris) wants her family to give her space. The other family "crisis" is that her parents discover their wedding certificate wasn't signed, hence the title.The film was hilarious. Andrea Martin looks like she is playing a Second City character. There is some coded adult talk "protect the plucky" and one scene where a couple is interrupted in a car. For the most part, it is family safe. Nia Vardalos also wrote the film. Kudos.Great comedy.

The first movie had culture clash, great comedy, and most importantly a major transformation of the lead character. The sequel is also funny and full of awkward too-close family moments, but lacks a major transformation (although Vardalos does looks quite fetching in the restaurant date scene). I would have done a rewrite. Have the mother insist on getting remarried in Greece (the family being more successful and wealthier to afford this). While there in the old country, the daughter (Paris) would appreciate Greek history and culture and see close Greek family ties as being "normal" and maybe even ogling a few cute Greek boys. She would then decide forego NYU and instead attend school in Chigago close to home, thus growing to accept the love of her family in a tear-jerking moment of reciprocated love. That would have been a more transformative and much happier ending to this sequel.

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library. There are a couple of interesting "making of" extras discussing how they brought essentially the entire cast back for this sequel. About 13 years ago when I saw the original I recall that I found it funny and totally entertaining. This one is good, but I didn't enjoy it as much. Mainly because I have short patience with overly loud families that intrude into the business of everyone else. I know, that is part of the premise but the first 20 minutes were less enjoyable for me. Often it seems that the humor is being forced and tied too closely to what we saw in the first one.Nia Vardalos, who also wrote the script, is back as Toula and John Corbett is back as her husband Ian. In this story they have an almost 18-yr-old daughter, about to finish high school and go off to college, so they have been married at least 19 years. The excitement has long ago worn off, with both of them always busy, so part of the theme here is rekindling their romance.Toula's father is again played by Michael Constantine, pushing 90, as Gus, and he still thinks Windex can cure almost anything. Lainie Kazan, pushing 75, is back as her mom, Maria. The main wedding focus here is Gus pulling out their old marriage certificate from over 50 years earlier and realizing it was never signed by the priest so he and Maria were never married. He wants to correct that but Maria insists on a genuine proposal and a real wedding.The other main story is about the daughter, Elena Kampouris as Paris. She is at that age where she wants to break free of her parents' influence, and grandpa Gus keeps bugging her about finding a nice Greek fellow and having a family. Overall an entertaining 90 minutes. I always enjoy Lainie Kazan, few realize that in her younger days she was a well-known singer and was actually Streisand's understudy for "Funny Girl" on Broadway. Plus Rita Wilson sings the final song that she also wrote, "Even More Mine" that plays over the credits. I had no idea she is such an accomplished singer, and beautiful lyrics.