SummaryBased upon Tyler Perry's acclaimed stage production, Madea's Family Reunion continues the adventures of southern matriarch Madea begun in the hit film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. (Lionsgate)
SummaryBased upon Tyler Perry's acclaimed stage production, Madea's Family Reunion continues the adventures of southern matriarch Madea begun in the hit film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. (Lionsgate)
Let's not sell Tyler Perry short. As the vinegar-witted Madea, he's a drag performer of testy charm, but in his overlit patchwork way he's also making the most primal women's pictures since Joan Crawford flexed her shoulder pads.
Madea's Family Reunion represents an advance on Diary, if only because it dials down Madea's shtick (she no longer waves a gun around) and irons out some of those awkward tonal transitions. The chance that Perry's followers will leave disappointed is approximately 0 percent.
Both Ms. Angelou and Ms. Tyson deliver powerful, touching messages. Just as they're sinking in, the film turns into an unabashed chick flick with a painfully gaudy wedding that includes live angels hanging on wires from the ceiling.
Perry makes sure villains get their comeuppance, while heroines get big, frilly weddings - with God, and an imperious Maya Angelou - presiding over it all.
Too bad the story is so predictable and the big wedding scene, in which women dressed as angels dangle from the church ceiling strumming harps, is cornier than an Orville Redenbacher factory.
What ends up on screen is confused storytelling that tries to solve too many social and family problems, sends mixed messages and, even worse, makes you laugh during parts when it's trying to be dead serious.