Review of Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011) by Shiira — 25 Feb 2011

Following in his father's footsteps, Trent(Brandon T. Jackson) falls for, in the immortal words of the late Rick James, "a very kinky girl," just like his dear old sweet mama. Like father, like son, indeed, or maybe it's just sloppy writing.

A decade ago, in Raja Gosnell's "Big Momma's House", FBI agent Malcolm Turner(Martin Lawrence), a master of disguise, first put on his fat suit and wig as part of a federal investigation against Sherry Pierce(Nia Long), Trent's mother, whom the bureau had suspected of laundering money stolen by her thuggish boyfriend(Terrence Howard) during a holdup in the bank where she worked as a teller.

Disguised as the person of interest's aunt, try as he might, Malcolm simply could not relate to his target as a 400-pound(by conservative estimates) mammy. His attention for Sherry would prove to be problematic, especially in the scene where the supposed niece crawls into bed with the undercover agent, and nearly blows his cover when their immediate closeness triggers a physiological change in the cross-dresser's anatomy.

Although a flashlight explains away the first initial concentration of blood(obviously reallocated from his brain), Malcolm's state of sexual arousal persists, so when Sherry gets no answer to her inquiry about a possible second flashlight, as it's edited(the filmmaker cuts away to the next set-up), the moviegoer wonders if she eventually vacates herself from the highly-charged bed, because from her perspective, Hattie May Pierce must either be a man, or a hermaphrodite.

In "Big Momma's: Like Father, Like Son", Trent(formerly played by Jascha Washington in the series' first two entries), an aspiring rap star, pays homage to his mother of indeterminate sexual orientation by dating a girl whose taste in potential partners are simpatico.

Oblivious to his feminine environs, a school of the arts for girls, Trent pees standing up, just as Haley(Jessica Lewis), a talented pianist, sets foot into the dorm room, and similar to Sherry, the singer-songwriter seems unfazed by the implied organ-related anomaly at hand, since the force of the outgoing liquid in concert with the abiding urinal, would suggest a sex-based discomfiture of startling proportions.

And yet, Trent goes unquestioned, despite being an obvious drag queen(Lawrence is marginably more successful as a woman), and continues to be accepted as being woman-like, which conveys an ambivalence in Haley about the second, more radical possibility.

As his alter-ego Charmaine, the self-proclaimed "Prodigy" is ever mindful of staying in character as it relates to sexual boundaries, unlike his father who, after learning that Sherry had committed no crime, forgets his put-upon identity and kisses her, not particularly chaste-like, a beat too long, full, on the lips.

Instead of reacting in outright horror and disbelief, Sherry gives Big Momma a look that intimates the opposite. Yes, "Big Momma's House" establishes the future Mrs. Turner as straight, but still, as a result of some slipshod writing, there's these gaps that preside over her ostensible heterosexuality.

Likewise, in "Big Momma's: Like Father, Like Son", Haley falls for a man, the rapper(also a nascent Duke student), but perhaps she concurrently falls for the perceived hermaphrodite, as well.

When Haley first lays eyes on "Charmaine" in the cafeteria from "Fame", she looks thunderstruck, giving the homely a frank appraisal of "her" loveliness(it must be love) with her twinkling eyes and outstretched mouth.

At the year-end showcase(in other words, talent show), because Trent needs to remain incognito from his gun-totin' pursuers, he replaces himself with his doppleganger femme, who performs the hip-hop-tinged love ballad that he collaborated with Haley, a song in which the girl tells the hermaphrodite "you're the air that I breathe".