Review of Madea's Big Happy Family (2011) by Jim C — 29 Aug 2011

Definitely better than Madea goes to jail. The comedy and the drama are both balanced much better, unlike Madea goes to jail where it was a drama (and an incredibly shitty one at that) with some comedy here and there.

That's not to say the dramatic aspects of this movie are better, because they're not. It still feels like a mix of talk show/soap opera/maudlin, and that's not a good mix. If Tyler Perry insists on doing this melodrama bullshit, he should take tips from Pedro Almodovar, who's a master at subtle melodrama.

He could also learn how to develop interesting characters and not have incredibly unlikable people crowding his movies. There are three female characters, and you've never seen such annoying characters.

I was praying for someone to punch them out. I don't think that's what I was supposed to feel for them. And I blame that on poorly written characters, not on myself, which goes back to Tyler Perry's one dimensional scripts.

I've never been a fan of Tyler Perry, but the guy is a talented on-screen performer, I'll never take that away from him. He's tremendous as Madea, just tremendous. But he can't write for shit.

He just can't. If the movie was supposed to stir up some emotion in me with the death of the main character (not Madea), then it just didn't work. I just didn't care one bit. And Loretta Divine is a wonderful actress and I don't blame her at all, but Perry lacks something in his writing style that makes you care for these characters outside of the comedic ones, because they make you laugh.

The movie isn't bad however, even though all I've done is shit on it. The cast is strong. Far better than the Madea goes to jail cast, which was terrible, with the exception of Viola Davis. Madea is still a suitably entertaining character and helps lighten the load a bit.

And that's about it really. The drama is the, typical, thing that drags this movie down to being a below average movie. But Tyler's core audience will enjoy this movie, and the movie's for them, so my opinion doesn't really matter.