“My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” was a pleasant follow up to a modern day classic. The movie featured plenty of heartfelt moments fans would expect, along with a lot of laughs. The original cast, which included Nia Vardalos as Toula Portokalos, John Corbett as Ian Miller, and Laine Kazan as Maria Portokalos, was back and delivered a nostalgic experience along with new members such as Elena Kampouris, who played Paris Miller, who provided a fresh spin.

The movie began with Toula Portokalos, 17 years after where the last movie left off. Toula seems to have fallen back into her old habits after the travel agency she worked at shut down and she picked up the responsibility of taking care of her aging parents. Toula is even finding it hard not to reflect some of her parents’ ways onto her daughter, who is struggling on whether or not to go to college in her native city of Chicago or in New York. After Toula’s father, Gus, discovers that he and his wife, Maria, are not actually married, the whole family is thrown into chaos as they are tasked to plan yet another wedding.

This movie had the potential to fall back into the same story as its predecessor with a similar plot, but succeeded in not doing so. While still holding true to its strong family theme, it focused more on Toula’s parents as the struggle to understand they weren’t officially married for the past 50 years and Toula’s hardship with facing problems she has with her parents and daughter.

The story made me laugh and cry several times and stayed true to the original idea of the movie, that family is everything. I would readily recommend seeing it if you were a fan of the first movie.