Best movie ever!

A Major Disappointment

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

My wife had this on, while I was surfing the web, so I wasn't really watching it. However, I couldn't help but listen. It was so bad, it was enthralling. The dialogue is terrible, particularly during the overblown romantic scenes, which simply define the word 'trite', and the direction appears to have been done by a lobotomised ferret. One moment it's big romantic themes, complete with dreary, emotive music, and the next it's ineptly executed slapstick comedy, with some bloke doing a bad Eddie Murphy and dressing up as an old lady, and her brother. Hilarious. Frankly, it wasn't funny when Murphy did it either. Whoever this guy is, he's extremely lacking in the talent department, and would be better off quitting while he's not ahead.In a nutshell, this movie is unfunny, badly written and deeply, deeply confused. It does comedy, it does romance, it does melodrama, but it does them all badly. All those associated with this film should be banned from their respective industries for at least a decade, so they can learn the error of their ways.

What a strange little film this is. This film has several parts that most definitely do not fit as a cohesive whole, vacillating wildly from preaching Christian values, to maudlin soap opera, to revenge to cheap sex-and-drug jokes. None of these are done particularly well, all shallow, generic and overdone, but, preposterously, the fact that it's such a Frankenstein's monster of poorly-done styles and that it shifts so frequently makes it far more standable than had it just picked a bad style and ran with it.The film at large is ALL climax. Every single scene, and damn near every single line is either melodramatic exclamation or a punchline that could end every conceivable "MadTV" sketch. Every line is slopping crafted to elicit an outburst from its audience, be it an "Mmhmm!" or an "Amen". This is a film that just wants to please its audience, to the point that it thinks it's appropriate to bookend an emotional discussion about a family member who has descended into the hell of drugs...with a scene of a woman on lithium smoking a joint and throwing herself into the yard to escape imaginary rabbits. It wants to get a reaction from every scene, it wants you to either be crying or laughing at every single moment of the film, tears flowing regardless of the reaction.Plot-wise, the film deals with Helen (Kimberly Elise) who as the film starts, is being put out on the street by her husband of 18 years (Steve Harris) as he reveals that he has children with some skank chica. She goes and becomes reacquainted with pistol-packing granny Medea (Tyler Perry) and the rest of her family, in the meantime falling in love with nice guy Orlando (Shemar Moore). But once her soon-to-be-ex-husband is crippled by a hit, she has to choose how she cares for this man that she still loves but threw her out on her ass.Kimberly Elise does her DAMNEDEST to make a real character out of this, and she's the only character that seems genuinely amazed that she's in this cinematic life, between the shock of the crazy break-up, and the voice-over shock that the guy she's with isn't doing SOMETHING wrong. The rest of the cast doesn't really do much. Shemar Moore has some good chemistry but is mostly the rebound guy, while Steve Harris is TERRIBLE in his delivery, enforcing his character as the cipher Type he is. The rest of the cast is seemingly played by Tyler Perry, including ridiculously over-the-top comic Plot Mechanism Grandma Medea, and his experience on the theater shows through, as it yells every line from every character, seemingly playing to the old ladies in the back of the theatre who are hard of hearing. I'm a bit surprised that Tyler Perry didn't direct, considering music video director Grant shows none of the flourish of music video directors, but none of the surehandedness of someone better. The film is mostly simple point-and-shoot, and Perry could easily have done it, as he apparently did for the sequels and all the other things in the Perry empire.It's a film designed for a specific group of people (middle-class churchgoing black folk), and its three-headed style monster and its basic emotional conceits make it remarkably easy to watch, and each and every scene seems to be either genuinely entertaining in a trashy sort of way, or unintentionally entertaining...in a trashy sort of way. Well, trashy in an upstanding Christian sort of way. In the sort of way that...uh...well...oh, what the hell? {Grade: 5.5/10 (C+/C) / #38 (of 62) of 2005}

Nothing seemed to match in this film. I found myself in the realistic world of a successful couple and then suddenly a madcap, lame version of the ghetto. I found a female lead that was charming and smart, then suddenly she shows no social savvy or wit at all.Continuity is important to a film experience and I was constantly reminded I was watching a film in this one. Sets didn't match, worlds didn't match , and the logic of characters didn't match in the slightest.Two good examples: A woman finds her man with another woman with the inference that he is cheating. She goes home to find her closet and things packed up with a whole new wardrobe to replace it. And she thinks that this is her husband's way of giving a gift to her? No one with any amount of street smarts would believe that all their packed belongings bodes well.The other is simply a character low on money shooting a hole in a the ceiling for no good reason other than getting someone's attention in a moment of banality. I'm guessing Mr. Perry was looking for a laugh, but simply shooting a gun isn't funny. And no transvestite grandma in any walk of life would ever do that.

I was given the wrong impression about this movie. I had family members raving about how FUNNY this movie was, and I never heard any other reviews to contradict this. So, with me being a big comedy fan, I watched this movie with the eagerness of a child on his birthday.Now, it is very easy for me to state why I was disappointed with this movie. It was NOT a comedy. Madea was NOT funny. She was humorous, yes, but funny?... NOT. This movie never even hinged on being a comedy, it was a sappy drama from the beginning. As I patiently awaited this movie to transform to the hilarious film I'd heard about, I was just dragged deeper and deeper into the sentimentally rich snoozer that it was. I am not a fan of dramas. Sure, there are dramas that I like (mostly biopics), but I know that they are dramas going in. I certainly am not a fan of romance (it's the guy in me). But, it is especially criminal when a drama or romance dresses in comedy clothing. If I knew from the start that this movie was a drama/romance that was going to be bogged down with some mawkish "message" I would have avoided this film and this rating and review would never have had to be issued. But, alas I was tricked, I paid the price, and now I have to let the world know.