DESPITE BIG NAMES, IT'S A MEETING YOU CAN MISS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

WHEN YOU SEE a playful Dustin Hoffman goading an uptight Robert De Niro in ``Meet the Fockers,'' you laugh simply in anticipation of watching these two great screen legends mixing it up. Then you hear the joke. Then you don't laugh.

Basically, repeat that scenario several dozen times, occasionally substitute Barbra Streisand for Hoffman and you've got ``Fockers,'' Jay Roach's grueling sequel to his more enjoyable 2000 comedy, ``Meet the Parents.'' Never has so much talent been wasted with so little imagination.

Giving this screenplay - credited to Jim Herzfeld (warning: this guy's writing ``Toy Story III'' for Disney) and John Hamburg - to these legendary actors is like serving shrimp s'mores to guests at a state dinner. Not pretty.

Sorry if the simile in the previous paragraph disturbed your breakfast. But if it did, stop reading now. ``Meet the Fockers,'' opening Wednesday, is the wrong movie for you. Most of the film's jokes fall into one of the following categories: 1) sight gags involving a small dog humping things, 2) boob jokes including a toddler's fixation with mammaries and 3) ``funny'' plays on the Focker family name, as in family get-together guests Dom, Randy and Orney.

Whereas ``Meet the Parents'' played as one long humiliation festival for Ben Stiller's Greg (aka Gaylord) Focker, the sequel spreads the wealth, letting everyone involved embarrass themselves. The set-up is pure sitcom: Gaylord and his cipher fiancee Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo) are getting married, so the time has come to introduce Pam's uptight CIA retiree father, Jake (De Niro), and her cipher mother (Blythe Danner) to the Focker folks.

To keep his standing in Jake's Circle of Trust, Greg lies and says that his mom is a doctor and his dad has a successful law practice. Truth is, mom (Streisand) is a sex therapist and author of self-help books like ``Is Your Vagina Happy?'' and dad (Hoffman) gave up his day job long ago to be Mr. Mom. The Fockers are touchy-feely, Jewish hippies. Put the Byrnes family into the picture and faster than you can say culture clash, you've got a recipe for high jinks.

Or at least you should. ``Fockers'' has its fair share of laughs, coasting on the dynamic between Hoffman's anything-goes friskiness and De Niro's scrunched-mouth indignation. But there's not enough for them to do and even less for Streisand, which is positively criminal given how seldom we see her these days. (De Niro we can watch in a bad movie a few times a year; in fact, he has another one coming out in January. He has become the new millennium's version of 1970s paycheck-cashing Michael Caine.)

Then there are comic set pieces like the foreskin in the fondue (don't ask) and the way Roach repeatedly trades on the innocence of a toddler, in this case the Byrnes family's grandson (played by twins Spencer and Bradley Pickren). The first two or three times he says the dirty word, it's funny. Kind of. You hate yourself for laughing, but whatever. The next dozen times they pull the gag it smacks of desperation. Pretty Focking bad - even for a sequel.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

MEET THE FOCKERS - Two stars

(PG-13: crude and sexual humor, language, brief drug reference)

Starring: Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand.

Director: Jay Roach.

Running time: 1 hr. 51 min.

Playing: Opens Wednesday in wide release.

In a nutshell: Sequel to ``Meet the Parents'' boasts twice the talent, delivers half the laughs of the original.

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Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand play free-spirited parents hosting their uptight future in-laws in ``Meet the Fockers.''