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Reviews Counted:52
Fresh:14
Rotten:38
Average Rating:4.5/10
Consensus: Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion is sincere in its positive intentions, but leaves something to be desired as a film.
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Tyler Perry follows up his DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN with more of his unique fusion of soapy melodrama, poetry, spirituality, romance, and raucous humor based on his popular stage play. This time... [More]
Starring: Lynn Whitfield, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, Rochelle Ayetes, Maya Angelou
Director: Tyler Perry
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.
Though Perry's films are hard to defend on aesthetic grounds -- the crazy shifts in tone from operatic melodrama to broad comedy could cause seizures -- it's equally hard to begrudge the underserved audiences who embrace them so passionately.
Tyler Perry still hasn't found the formula for combining comedy and drama
Both of the villains are so far over the top they should be in the summer Olympics.
Is "Madea" a postive move? You bet. Positively insulting to anyone who's graduated middle school and read at least one book since.
The spousal abuse storyline might have some gravity if the movie didn't simultaneously make a joke of child abuse.
That's the most offensive thing about Madea: the way it pretends to deal with difficult problems -- child abuse, rape, spousal abuse -- and then offers simplistic answers.
Family Reunion doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy or a drama and ends up as mostly a melodrama with scenes that would be embarrassing on a soap opera.
This movie's trailers promise a slapstick comedy about an obese black woman who takes no guff and enjoys beating people up. It isn't exactly, and that's a disappointment.
Top CriticGoodwilled? Sure. Good filmmaking? Lord no.
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.
Like horror flicks or family films, Tyler Perry's Madea movies -- based on his enormously successful plays -- are a genre unto themselves, which means one thing: Either you are going to see them or you are not, and no review will change your mind.
Madea's Family Reunion does an amateur job of addressing valid issues of love, faith and independence.
Brimming with cliches, Madea, like Diary, has an undeniable appeal, for those who can stick with it, in its earnest and unfashionable conviction.
Top CriticA generally enjoyable mess.
Some parts of Tyler Perry's new movie are better than others -- and all of it is better than Diary of a Mad Black Woman, his last one.
This happy mash-up of romance, drama, low comedy and high drama works because it is all tied together by Perry's open-hearted conviction.
It's possible to admire the message and the messenger but not the cinematic vehicle.
Better than its predecessor, but only in the same way that the bomb on Nagasaki was better than the one on Hiroshima.
If Tyler Perry worked in construction, he'd use a sledgehammer when a tack hammer would get the job done. At least that's the impression given by his didactic film.
March 20, 2008:
Box Office Guru Preview: Madea Takes On Dr. Seuss
March Madness hits the North American box office as three new releases hit the multiplexes hoping to take down the reigning Dr. Suess toon. More...
October 18, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: 30 Days of Night Gets Halloween Started Early
Competition, or a lack of it, will be the deciding factor at the North American box office this weekend for the half-dozen new releases that studios are packing into already... More...
October 11, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: Wide Open Race For #1 Spot This Weekend
Five new films push their way into nationwide release on Friday hoping to challenge two-time champ The Rock making for what should be a free-for-all at the North American box... More...
March 08, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: "300" Prepares to Conquer Multiplexes
For the first time in nearly a month, North America's most popular movie won't be about motorcycles. Warner Bros. goes back in time 2,500 years for the epic war saga... More...
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