Yes folks, Tyler Perry is back, with all the wifebeating, moralizing, home cookin' and inappropriate jokes about drugs and assault that his target audience (y'know, churchgoin' black folk) has come to expect and cherish (albeit with diminishing returns) from his films.
Surprisingly here, he had a solid cast and a decent enough script that it could have been just as touching and funny as Madea's Family Reunion unexpectedly was, if he could just avoid the maudlin twists of melodrama, the manufactured strife that continually frustrated the film's otherwise successful attempts at ingratiation. Just when everything is going good, when you're touched even as the manipulation shows its seams, the find finds something to bring you down, be it a dredging of past, a miscommunication or even a preposterously-timed shooting, there's just something that makes you go, "Why?" Leave it be, it's working." The acting is not impeccable (that there's not a lot of subtlety or nuance involved in the proceedings goes without saying), but it has a charming down-home vibe to it; these characters feel lived in, even if they're obvious constructs. Tyler Perry's doppleganger Madea is featured on the cover and the menu screen, but really, other than a character attesting to being her daughter, Madea gets a whopping *one scene*, and it's completely, 100% superfluous to the story (she's getting chased by the cops while her flamboyant ex-husband watches on the local news), and at that, feels hideously tacked on.
One point that intrigues me about the psyche of Tyler Perry, which, as stated in the Madea's review, is full-on for all to see, is his seeming distrust of full-blooded, dark-skinned black men. In all three films I've seen, the three major, romantically-involved, dark-skinned black male characters have been: a wifebeater, a wifebeater, and a man who threatens to beat his wife when she has the audacity to request long-overdue child support. While on the flipside, the women all find true love falling into the arms of genial, light-skinned black men of more caramel complexion, and I have to wonder if somewhere in his mind, there's some deep-seated rejection as the lighter skin is somehow "better", but he can't have her fall in love with a white man. Just something to think about.
The film, like all of Perry's, is easy to watch and never becomes a chore, but where Diary of a Mad Black Woman was an ungainly monster that gave you whiplash in its genre shifts, and where Madea's Family Reunion managed to put it all together, Meet the Browns is situated right in the middle, with enough success to be pleasant, but enough mistakes to make you wish it was better.
{Grade: 6.25/10 (high C+) / #19 (of 57) of 2008}
Surprisingly here, he had a solid cast and a decent enough script that it could have been just as touching and funny as Madea's Family Reunion unexpectedly was, if he could just avoid the maudlin twists of melodrama, the manufactured strife that continually frustrated the film's otherwise successful attempts at ingratiation. Just when everything is going good, when you're touched even as the manipulation shows its seams, the find finds something to bring you down, be it a dredging of past, a miscommunication or even a preposterously-timed shooting, there's just something that makes you go, "Why?" Leave it be, it's working." The acting is not impeccable (that there's not a lot of subtlety or nuance involved in the proceedings goes without saying), but it has a charming down-home vibe to it; these characters feel lived in, even if they're obvious constructs. Tyler Perry's doppleganger Madea is featured on the cover and the menu screen, but really, other than a character attesting to being her daughter, Madea gets a whopping *one scene*, and it's completely, 100% superfluous to the story (she's getting chased by the cops while her flamboyant ex-husband watches on the local news), and at that, feels hideously tacked on.
One point that intrigues me about the psyche of Tyler Perry, which, as stated in the Madea's review, is full-on for all to see, is his seeming distrust of full-blooded, dark-skinned black men. In all three films I've seen, the three major, romantically-involved, dark-skinned black male characters have been: a wifebeater, a wifebeater, and a man who threatens to beat his wife when she has the audacity to request long-overdue child support. While on the flipside, the women all find true love falling into the arms of genial, light-skinned black men of more caramel complexion, and I have to wonder if somewhere in his mind, there's some deep-seated rejection as the lighter skin is somehow "better", but he can't have her fall in love with a white man. Just something to think about.
The film, like all of Perry's, is easy to watch and never becomes a chore, but where Diary of a Mad Black Woman was an ungainly monster that gave you whiplash in its genre shifts, and where Madea's Family Reunion managed to put it all together, Meet the Browns is situated right in the middle, with enough success to be pleasant, but enough mistakes to make you wish it was better.
{Grade: 6.25/10 (high C+) / #19 (of 57) of 2008}