FILM REVIEW OF ''TYLER PERRY'S BOO 2! A MADEA HALLOWEEN"

Compared to the nine other movies about Mabel Simmons, “Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween!” (** OUT ****) qualifies as surprisingly lame and lightweight.  I’ve laughed myself silly at all of Madea’s madcap misadventures, but this sequel to last year’s box office sensation “Boo! A Madea Halloween” is the least maniacal Madea movie in the franchise.  Naturally, not only does the multi-talented Tyler Perry play Madea, but he also chews the scenery as Joe as well as the straight-laced Brian.  The problem with “Boo 2” is Madea winds up blending into the background.  Indeed, dope-smoking, promiscuous Joe with his profane lips lands all the best lines. Meanwhile, Madea ends up doing little if anything until this parody of “Friday the 13^th” slasher movies enters its second half-hour.  The best Madea movies are those where Madea looms front and center as well as loud and proud.  She dominates everything and divides her enemies and relatives like Moses did the Red Sea.  Unfortunately, writer & director Tyler Perry has hobbled the world’s looniest lady.  She doesn’t engineer the outcome of his middling comedy of errors about a dysfunctional African-American clan.  Furthermore, Aunt Bam (Cassi Davis) and Hattie (Patrice Lovely) get more laughs than Madea. 

If you skipped “Boo” last year, you probably won’t understand why the situation has changed.  Bryant’s oldest daughter has finally turned 18, and she believes that this solidifies her status as an adult, particularly the things she sought to do before she was 18.  Brian and she initiate everything in “Boo 2” with their contentious father & daughter relationship, while Madea appears on the fringe like a guest star and exerts little, direct impact on these events in general.  In other words, she doesn’t save the day.  Nevertheless, Madea fans will find enough to laugh and smile at even when they aren’t laughing and smiling at Madea.  Produced at a cost of $21 million, “Boo 2” has lots of polish, atmospheric locations, and set-design, and the acting is tolerable. Those goofy fraternity brothers—Vin Diesel lookalike Yousef Erakat and his pal Mike Tornabene—return for more mischief.  However, Joe, Bam, and Hattie steal “Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” from the monstrous matron.

“Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” opens as Brian (Tyler Perry) waits at his teenage daughter’s prep school, wearing a cone-shaped party cap, and with a gift in a decorative sack.  Tiffany (Diamond White of “The Lion Guard”) isn’t pleased to see her father.  Usually, Brian takes her home where the family assembles to eat cake and celebrate the occasion.  Tiffany thinks the tradition stinks and wants nothing to do with it.  Brian presents Tiffany with a pair of headphones as her birthday gift, so he won’t have to contend with her music when she is in his car.  Tiffany labored under the delusion that Brian was going to give her a shiny, new car for her birthday, since she is an adult with plans to attend college.  Brian tells Tiffany that she is too irresponsible to have a vehicle.  No sooner has he asserted himself on the subject than his ex-wife, Debra (Taja V. Simpson of “The Preacher’s Son”), parks at the school and hands Tiffany the keys to a new red Mini-Cooper.  Naturally, Brian is disturbed because Debra has given Tiffany something that his daughter hasn’t earned.  Brian reminds Debra that Tiffany is hopelessly irresponsible and will probably get a ticket for reckless driving. As soon as she gets behind the wheel, Tiffany careens off to the Upsilon Theta Fraternity house where she crashed their Halloween party last year with her friend Gabriella (Inanna Sarkis of “A Killer Walks Amongst Us”) in the first “Boo.”  Initially, Tiffany learns that the Upsilon Thetas are throwing another party, but her interference in last year’s party has forced them to hold it somewhere else than their frat house. The fraternity leader, Jonathan (Yousef Erakat of “Natural Born Pranksters”), is relieved to hear that Tiffany is now old enough to drink. As it turns out, they are holding the party at the dilapidated, off-limits Derrick Lake campground where two savage killers attacked amorous couples necking in cars years ago.  Worse, the authorities never caught those homicidal maniacs! 

Back at Brian’s house, the unfortunate father must endure no end of ridicule from his relatives, including Madea (Tyler Perry), Joe (Tyler Perry), Aunt Bam (Cassi Davis of “Daddy’s Little Girls”) and Hattie (newcomer Patrice Lovely), for letting his ex-wife one-up him with her birthday gift.  So certain is Tiffany that Brian will not let her attend the Upsilon Theta party that she persuades Debra to let her sleep over at her mother’s house.  Furthermore, she convinces her mom to let her attend the Upsilon party.  As luck would have it, Madea eavesdrops on their conversation and warns Brian about Tiffany’s scheme.  None of this prevents Tiffany from attending the party, and the party goes into full swing with lots of drinking and drugs, until two boogeymen in gas masks wielding chainsaws attack an Upsilon Theta pledge.  A creepy girl who resembles the demons in those Japanese “Ring” horror movies watches them.  At this point, Madea cruises into the haunted campground with Joe, Aunt Bam, and Hattie, collides with another demonic girl, and then confronts the Grim Reaper.  Meantime, Jonathan, Tiffany, Dino, and Gabriella flee from Derrick Lake and take refuge in an abandoned house. Eventually, Brian and Gabriella’s father, Victor (UFC fighter Tito Ortiz of “Cradle 2 the Grave”), ride to the rescue.

“Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” is harmless, half-baked hokum bristling with low-brow slapstick comedy.  Basically, the tenth Madea movie works on the level of an animated “Scooby-Doo” movie.  Of course, everything works out well for everybody, but Madea doesn’t dominate the shenanigans.  Instead, Brian has a large hand in what happens at Derrick Lake.  Far from qualifying as a treat, “Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” amounts to little more than a trick.

FILM REVIEW OF ''I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF" (2009)

As entertaining as the latest Madea comedy is, writer & director Tyler Perry’s seventh movie “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” (*** out of ****) doesn’t generate half as much humor and heartache as earlier Madea entries. No, “I Can Do Bad” doesn’t top “Madea Goes to Jail.” First, not only does everybody’s favorite pistol-packing grandmother Maybelle "Madea" Simmons not pack a pistol, but she also spends more time off screen. In other words, she doesn’t break the law and end up either in court or jail. She qualifies more as a supporting character used for comic relief. Second, “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” boasts no surprises. Indeed, most of this sermonizing melodrama about seeking redemption from Jesus focuses on the trials and tribulations of a liquor-swilling lounge warbler who finds her life suddenly turned topsy-turvy when her three motherless niece and nephews as well as a Latino immigrant take up residence in her townhouse.

No, despite its inspirational message, “I Can Do Bad” probably isn’t designed entirely for Sunday night churchgoers, though there are several religious-themed songs sung. The theme of child abuse rears its ugly head about three-fourths of the way through this 113 minute epic while the heroine wallows in an adulterous affair with another wife’s husband. Usually, if you can figure out a movie before the characters figure out what is happening, the movie isn’t as imaginative. Perry counteracts the wholesale predictability of “I Can Do Bad” with a charismatic cast, including Taraji P. Henson, Gladys Knight, Adam Rodriguez, Brian White, and Marvin L. Winans.

“I Can Do Bad” gets off on the right foot. Madea (Tyler Perry in a dual cross-dressing role) awakens to the noise of burglars in her house, but she cannot rouse Joe (Tyler Perry) to check out the disturbance. Madea catches Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson), Manny (Kwesi Boakye) and Byron (Freddy Siglar) in the act of stealing Joe’s VCR so they can see it for food. Madea and Joe sit this terrible threesome down for a meal and try to pry out of them information about who is responsible for them. Jennifer tries to act tough, but Madea acts tougher. “Honey,” she informs the teenage girl, “I been to jail. I will shank you.” Afterward, Madea goes to work on her two younger brothers who confess that their guardian has been gone for several days. Eventually, Madea learns that they are relatives of April (Taraji P. Henson of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) who sings in a local nightclub. When Madea shows up at April’s front door, the grouchy singer isn’t happy to see them. Typically, April sleeps off her alcoholic binges until the late afternoon with another woman’s husband Randy (Brian White of “12 Rounds”) who cannot stand his own three munchkins and a forthcoming one, too. Basically, Randy manages to foot the bills for both households, but he sleeps with April for obvious reasons.

Tanya (Mary J. Blige of “Prison Song”), who employs April to sing, breaks down and chides her about her selfishness and her alcoholism. April ignores Tanya and keeps on drinking. When matriarchal Madea comes banging on April’s door with the children, April explains that they belong to her sister. April’s sister died from crack abuse, and April’s long-suffering mother now cares for the trio. Nobody knows where April’s mom is until Pastor Brian (gospel star Marvin L. Winans of “Mama, I Want to Sing”) and churchgoing songster Wilma (Gladys Knight of “Hollywood Homicide”) investigate and visit April about 45 minutes into the plot with the tragic news. April’s mother, it seems, climbed aboard a city bus to go to work and died from an aneurism in route. Everybody, including the bus driver, thought that she was sleeping.

Initially, April wants nothing to do with her niece and nephews, but Jennifer is caught shoplifting at a corner drugstore. Byron, it seems, suffers from diabetes and Jennifer knows how to handle it. Of course, Randy is dead set against the kids moving in with April, but teenage Jennifer catches his gimlet eye. Meanwhile, a virile Columbian immigrant who works as a handyman, Sandino (Adam Rodriguez of CBS-TV’s “C.S.I.: Miami”), shows up at Pastor Brian’s Zion Liberty Baptist Church looking for work. Pastor Brian promises to pay him for some church repairs and then sends him over to work out his rent in April’s house. April and Sandino don’t get off on the right foot and Randy doesn’t like him period. She allots space for Sandino in her basement. Meantime, April pawns her relatives off on Madea to repay her for their depredations in her house. Pastor Brian, Wilma, Tanya, and even Sandino go to work on the callous April. When she sees the life of sin that she has been living, the self-destructive singer converts and follows Madea’s advice: "If you give some good things to people, good things come back to you--most of the time."

The themes of juvenile delinquency, selfishness, self-sacrifice, and ego are hammered home through songs and sermons both that often belabor the point and rob it of any shred of subtlety. Henson really shines as the protagonist who sees the light and changes her behavior and Rodriguez emerges as her knight-in-shining armor. Brian White makes a strong impression as the cheating husband. Nevertheless, Madea still trumps them all with her warped sense of humor. The best scene in “I Can Do Bad” has Madea regaling Jennifer with her side-splitting story about Jonah and the whale. “That’s when Noah showed up, with his arch, the St. Louis arch.” It is a tribute to Perry’s skill as a filmmaker and the charisma of his sturdy cast that together they can make you sniffle, sob, and cry aloud at the drop of every cliché in “I Can Do Bad.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''MADEA GOES TO JAIL''

They call her Mabel Simmons, but everybody knows her as Madea. This elderly but agile, six-foot-five, African-American matriarch can whip her own weight in cops. She can mangle Biblical scripture, but still make her points. Atlanta-based filmmaker Tyler Perry has now helmed three theatrical features about this short-tempered, bespectacled, gray-haired grandma who packs an automatic pistol in her purse and isn’t afraid to use it. In Perry’s latest comedy “Madea Goes to Jail” (**** out of ****), an impatient young woman in a red convertible swerves past Madea’s Cadillac as our heroine cruises through her local Big K in search of a parking space. Madea has her sights set on a space near the front doors. Before Madea can pull into it, the red convertible woman cuts her off and parks in the space. Madea harangues the woman for stealing her space. Ignoring Madea, the woman saunters off into the store. An angry Madea commandeers a nearby fork lift and hoists the woman’s convertible out of her parking space! When the shocked woman scrambles into the parking lot screaming at Madea to put her car down, Madea obliges her cheerfully. No sooner has Madea dropped the convertible than the woman uses her cell phone to call her police husband to come haul off Jemima the Hun!

Anybody who has seen “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” “Madea’s Family Reunion,” and/or “Meet the Browns” knows that writer, producer, director Tyler Perry makes people laugh harder and longer impersonating an angry black woman than Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence put together. The matronly Madea ranks as one of the most maniacal comic characters you’ll ever see, and her seismic slapstick shenanigans in “Madea Goes to Jail” register like an epic earthquake on the Richter scale. We learn at the outset that Madea has bounced checks, stolen identities, worked as a stripper to feed her family, and drives without a license. She refuses to admit that she has ever flown into a rage and she doesn’t like people touching her. Meanwhile, when Tyler isn’t playing Madea, he plays Madea’s beleaguered thirty-something attorney son Brian and Madea’s crotchety old coot of a husband Joe who smokes pot while he is hooked up to an oxygen machine. The antics of this dysfunctional family will keep you guffawing until your sides split, but Perry doesn’t make “Madea Goes to Jail” one long laugh after another. Moreover, he doesn’t utilize Madea strictly for comic relief. Indeed, he uses everybody’s favorite matriarch to make some heavyweight philosophical points.

Perry alternates between Madea’s pratfalls and the predicament of a drug-addicted young woman with a history of abuse who has been arrested for prostitution. Atlanta District Attorney Joshua Hardaway (Derek Luke of “Biker Boyz”) has the world by the coattails. Joshua has a great job, good friends, and a pampered princess of a fiancé, Assistant District Attorney Linda (Ion Overman), who boasts an 89 percent conviction rate. Joshua is about to prosecute the case against Candy (“The Cosby Show’s” Keshia Knight Pulliam) until he recognizes her as a childhood friend. Excusing himself, Joshua turns the case over to Linda. Joshua is clearly shaken by the appearance of his old friend, and he helps Candy make bail. Afterward, he introduces the defiant Candy to a tough-love minister, Ellen (Viola Davis of “Doubt”), who runs interference for prostitutes in the red light district and tries to rescue them. Candy turns her nose up to Ellen. Meanwhile, Linda isn’t happy about her new competition, especially when Joshua rescues Candy after an abusive pimp that beats her. Joshua reassures Linda that he doesn’t love Candy. Nevertheless, every time Linda turns around, Candy shows up at Joshua’s apartment. Linda tampers with the evidence in Candy’s case, and the judge sentences Candy to a 17-year stretch in prison. At the same time, Linda turns her wrath on Madea who hasn’t done a day in jail. The judge (real-life Judge Matthias) lowers the gavel on Madea. He sentences Madea to five to ten years because of the convertible incident.

When Tyler Perry isn’t making madcap Madea movies, he has been sharpening his skill with melodramas, such as “Why Did I Get Married” and “The Family That Preys,” that bristle with histrionics galore. Typically, proud villains flaunt the upper hand for the first half of these yarns. During the second half, however, the meek triumph over the proud. Half of the fun of watching “The Family That Preys,” “Why Did I Get Married,” and even “Madea Goes to Jail” is savoring the success of the meek over the proud. Perry likes to bring the bad to their knees the same way that Madea unloads that red convertible with a crash in the Big K parking lot. You’ll see more than enough of this in “Madea Goes to Jail.” The villains—especially haughty Linda—make you want to shadow box with their screen images while sympathetic individuals like Joshua make you want to embrace them. Anytime a movie can make you laugh, cry, and then laugh again, you know you’ve found something worth watching. “Madea Goes to Jail” makes you laugh, cry, and laugh again and you don’t have to be African-American to enjoy it. Perry concludes this cataclysmic comedy on a high note as Madea winds up having to attend another anger management session with Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil may never be the same after this movie. Incidentally, the theatrical version of Tyler Perry’s “Madea Goes to Jail” differs substantially from the 2006 video release “Madea Goes to Jail.” The two are alike only because they share the same title and title character. Realistically, "Madea Goes to Jail" should have been retitled "Madea Goes to Prison."