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Nobody really needed or wanted a sequel to the 2002 rom-com "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," except for writer/star Nia Vardalos, who in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" throws together a bunch of one-note sitcom characters and calls it a family.
Vardalos returns as Toula Portakalos-Miller, who gave up her Chicago travel-agency job to return to her parents' restaurant. She helps her aged parents, Costas (Michael Constantine) and Maria (Lainie Kazan), and volunteers at the high school where her husband, Ian (John Corbett), is principal and their daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), is a perpetually mortified senior.
Toula throws herself into trying to fix her family's problems: Paris wants to leave Chicago for college elsewhere, Ian is concerned their marriage has lost its romance, and it turns out the priest never signed Costas' and Maria's wedding certificate — and Maria kicks Costas out of their bed until he makes a proper proposal. All this culminates, of course, in another mega-wedding, organized in hectic fashion by all of Toula's relations, including brother Nick (Louis Mandylor), cousins Nikki (Gia Carides) and Angelo (Joey Fatone), and all-knowing Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin).
Director Kirk Jones ("What to Expect When You're Expecting") adds a few grace notes when Vardalos' script moves toward the sweetly romantic, but he can't do much to fix her attraction to stereotyped ethnic humor, which is so egregious and unfunny that it strains the argument that it's OK when she's lampooning her own ethnic group.
'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2'
Opens Friday, March 25, at theaters everywhere; rated PG-13 for some suggestive material; 94 minutes.