ign logo IGN.com | AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | GameSpy | FilePlanet | TeamXbox | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | Direct2Drive

RottenTomatoes.com

RT Bug Squash
Home Movies DVD Celebrities News Critics Photos & Trailers The Vine Forums
Box Office | Best Of | Certified Fresh | Showtimes
Register for free site & special features! | Log In | What is RT?
                       
MOVIES / ON DVD / FIRST SUNDAY
First Sunday

Rate This Movie

Write a Review
Share This Movie
Add to List
Buy Poster

Bookmark and Share

First Sunday (2008)

15%
11%
28%
N/A
N/A
N/A
15 %
Reviews Counted: 68 Fresh: 10  Rotten:58 Average Rating: 3.8/10
 
Consensus: Its heart is in the right place, but its funny bone is dislocated. First Sunday may have its heart in the right place, but its funny bone is dislocated. more
 
Rated: 12A
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Theatrical Release: 28-03-2008
Synopsis:
David E. Talbert makes his directorial debut with this comedy about Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), childhood friends with a knack for getting into trouble. Despite his continual bad decisions, Durell gets one thing right: he's a good father to his adolescent son. When he... [More]
David E. Talbert makes his directorial debut with this comedy about Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), childhood friends with a knack for getting into trouble. Despite his continual bad decisions, Durell gets one thing right: he's a good father to his adolescent son. When he learns that the boy's mother, his ex-girlfriend, Omunique (Regina Hall), needs $17,000 to buy her beauty shop or she'll leave Baltimore and move to Atlanta, he's determined to get her the money to keep his son in his life. Meanwhile, LeeJohn needs big money fast to pay off some bad guys. Durell and LeeJohn decide that the collection plate of their local church holds the answer to their money woes. But their attempt to rob the church is foiled in progress: the money is already missing, and the would-be burglars didn't realize there would be people at the church. Finding themselves with a group of parishioners and choir members at their mercy, Durell and LeeJohn have to make some decisions about exactly what kind of men they want to be. FIRST SUNDAY also makes a statement about the role of the church in urban areas and its importance within the community. Keith David is Deacon Randy, who has grandiose plans for moving the church to a "less urban" neighborhood. Chi McBride stars as Pastor Mitchell, and Malinda Williams is his strong-willed daughter, Tianna, who wants First Hope Community Church to stay right where it is and expand its services. Loretta Devine is Sister Doris, the parish secretary and foster mother with a heart of gold. Ice Cube and Morgan have good rapport as the bickering buddies, with Morgan's silliness providing loads of comic relief, but Katt Williams is the scene-stealer as Rickey, the flamboyant choir director with something to say about everything and everyone. [Less]

Genre: Comedies

Starring: Ice Cube, Katt Williams, Tracy Morgan, Loretta Devine, Michael Beach

Director: David E. Talbert
Screenwriter: David E. Talbert
Producer: David E. Talbert, David McIlvain, Tim Story, Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez
Composer: Stanley Clarke

DVD Info

Release:

Jun 5, 2008

[DVD Details]

Blu-ray Features:

  • Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.85

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 5.1 - English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai
  • Subtitles - Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai - Optional

Additional Release Material:

  • Additional Audio Material - Camera Wrap Speech - David Talbert
  • Audio Commentary David Talbert - Writer/Director
  • Deleted Scenes / Extended Scenes
  • Featurettes - HOOD ROBBIN' - First Sunday Cast and Crew
  • Gag Reel
  • Outtakes - 1. Katt Williams
  • 2. Tiffany Pollard

Interactive Features:

  • The Almighty Version Enhanced Fact Track

Reviews

 
T-Meter Critics
 
 
Top Critics
 
 
RT Community
 
 
My Critics
 
 
My Friends
 
 
DVD
 
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4
Arrange By: Name | Fresh | Rotten | Date | Source
 
 
Ratings Image

With his movie debut, Talbert plays to his established audience, the redemption message riding roughshod over everything, even such trifling concerns as character consistency and continuity.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 10:50 AM
Phelim O'Neill
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Tired, unfunny comedy with Ice Cube as a bungling crook.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 09:46 AM
Sun Online
Ratings Image

The least funny man ever to make a career in comedy movies, Ice Cube hauls his sullen mug back in front of the cameras for the execrable First Sunday.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 09:35 AM
Wendy Ide
Times [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Cube's maudlin, overly precious relationship with his son hits a few sour notes, but Morgan's rubbery, half-crazy Leejohn always drags the film back into its manic, cartoony groove.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 08:41 AM
Ken McIntyre
Total Film
Ratings Image

On your own day of judgement, select a better film from the listings.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 08:30 AM
Simon Jordan
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Loretta Devine and Olivia Cole shine out as veteran members of the flock, but even their class combined is no saving grace.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 08:13 AM
Stella Papamichael
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Seasoned stars such as Loretta Devine and Regina Hall do their best...but it's an uphill struggle with a script even the good lord would rent asunder.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 05:43 AM
Tim Evans
Sky Movies
Ratings Image

Grafting moral uplift on to a slapstick caper with mixed results, this nevertheless captures some of the giddy eccentricity of the Ealing comedies it haphazardly resembles.

Full Review | Comment
03/28/08 04:48 AM
Mark Holcomb
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Devilish satire outing felons who come in gaudy three piece suits too, a sweltering church 'hotter than Satan's toenails' and Sunday sermon sidebars that all the rest makes go down easy.

Full Review | Comment
05/03/08 12:08 PM
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze
Ratings Image

The missing-church-funds subplot will be easily figured out by any four year old, but it winds up being a McGuffin anyway.

Full Review | Comment
05/01/08 04:30 PM
Alonso Duralde
MSNBC
Ratings Image

With its unlikely but sweet-natured story, 'First Sunday' is a cut above most of the "January junk" that floods the theaters this time of year.

Full Review | Comment
02/24/08 10:59 AM
Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)
Ratings Image

Getting religion in the end is no excuse for a parade of bad taste.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 12:26 PM
Jeffrey Westhoff
Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)
Ratings Image

Ice Cube is now Public Enemy Number Fun, although First Sunday is only fun if you're in dire need of a modernist urban take on the strain of comedy Abbott and Costello used to practice, which, let's be honest, wasn't that funny to begin with.

Full Review | Comment
02/01/08 02:13 PM
Marc Savlov
Austin Chronicle
Ratings Image

Writer-director David E. Talbert has a fine cast...but he lets them down with a wretched, amateurish script...

Full Review | Comment
01/17/08 07:53 PM
Jim Lane
Sacramento News & Review
Ratings Image

If Tyler Perry ever wanted to turn Dog Day Afternoon into a treacly after-school special, it would probably end up looking a lot like this.

Full Review | Comment
01/17/08 11:17 AM
Chris Nashawaty
Entertainment Weekly
Ratings Image

Ice Cube's franchising of the weekdays continues with First Sunday.

Full Review | Comment
01/17/08 07:57 AM
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters
Ratings Image

First Sunday isn’t the most refined moviemaking you’ll ever see, but it gives 2008 cinema a perfectly humane start.

Full Review | Comment
01/16/08 10:40 AM
Armond White
New York Press
Ratings Image

Combining the hijinks of the Friday series with the spiritual bent of Tyler Perry's work seems like an obvious move. For producer/star Ice Cube, it's also a dishonest one.

Full Review | Comment
01/15/08 11:19 AM
Mark Palermo
Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
Ratings Image

First Sunday, a self-described 'funny and heartwarming comedy,' stumbles in the comedy department, but fills the heart's collection plate with a strong inspirational finish.

Full Review | Comment
01/14/08 01:56 PM
Larry Ratliff
San Antonio Express-News
Ratings Image

For a movie that's filled with so many talented comedians, it's shocking that First Sunday is only sporadically funny.

Full Review | Comment
01/14/08 09:56 AM
Ethan Alter
Film Journal International
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4
See More Topics...

Related Forums

(2008/Urban Comedy/Rated PG-13)-FIRST SUNDAY set to open Nationwide on January 11th!!
by: ReelReviewer.com 1/20


'First Sunday' Shouldn't Be Your First Priority, But It's Got Some Value
by: MH and THE MOVIES 1/19


Tracy Morgan is hilarious
by: Dane Cook is NOT Funny 1/15


The Amazing Part
by: Bullldog 1/14


First-look OFFICIAL STILLS!
by: RottingTomato 10/30/07
all

Pictures

all

Videos

Ice Cube & Tracy Morgan
Watch Now >>
all

News

RT on DVD: I'm Not There is Here! Plus, News of the Blu-Ray Xbox 360 Rumors...
posted by Jen Yamato May 05, 2008
Microsoft comments on rumors that they'll be putting Blu-Ray players in Xbox 360s and the MPAA's best anti-piracy...


Box Office Guru Preview: Fool's Gold Hopes to Shine in Battle of New Comedies
posted by Gitesh Pandya February 07, 2008
Hollywood plays the race card this weekend opening a pair of star-driven comedies, one for white moviegoers and the...


Box Office Guru Preview: 01.18.08 Arrives
posted by Gitesh Pandya January 17, 2008
For the first time in four years, the Martin Luther King holiday weekend will not be ruled by a film led by an African...


Critical Consensus: Bucket Gets Kicked, The Orphanage is Certified Fresh, In the Name of the King Not Screened
posted by Tim Ryan January 10, 2008
This week at the movies, we've got two wild and crazy guys, pious crooks, botanical buccaneers, haunted expatriates,...

Around the Network

• First Sunday at Rotten Tomatoes
• First Sunday at IGN
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | ModCenter | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive

By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2008, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.