A Madea Christmas

Last night, my mother and I decided to go to the premiere of the newest Tyler Perry film, "A Madea Christmas". We have seen all of the Madea films for the first time in the passed three months, and we have come to love Tyler very much as a writer and director. For me, the last two Madea films, "Madea Goes to Jsil" and "Madea's Witness Protection" just weren't that good. My mother, however, loved them even more than the original two films. "A Madea Christmas" has exactly what the previous films were missing: heart and a message. Tyler truly created a good little play-like film that explores themes still relevant to today. Anyways, let me begin the actual review, rather than my backstory.

When Madea's niece tells her mother that she cannot make it home for Christmas this year, the mother begs Madea to drive her down South to see her daughter for the holiday. Once again, we have a hilarious caper of twists and turns that make us laugh and cry, that touch us and uplift us. I prefer to call this film more of a dramedy than a comedy. It's serious, yet lighthearted.

Tyler Perry's writing is all-in-all brilliant, in my opinion. He knows how to craft characters as well as craft hilarious scenes. Sometimes Perry even drops one-liners that either make us laugh, drop our jaws, and sometimes he makes us do both. The man has a heart, and I love that about him. Tyler's films typically get low ratings for no reason whatsoever. They continually kill me with laughter, and this one shocks me the most. I found it to be the funniest out of all five films, but it is definitely not my favorite. It marches in order after "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" and then "Madea's Big Happy Family".

The acting in this film was excellent, as well! Chad Michael Murray dominates a role as the town tough guy, whilst a small boy (surprisingly playing Chad Michael Murray's character's son) touches everyone's heart who watches the film. I nearly cried at one point, due to how exceptional this young man's acting skills were. He deserves so many awards for what he did with his character. My main attraction for the film was Larry the Cable Guy. That man has done so many awful comedy sketches, but even HE did a fantastic job with his character! The main characters weren't cookie-sheet cut-outs, but legitimate people, in my eyes. They all felt real, and so did this whole caper Madea was drug into.

The plot has many different story threads taking place, as well as many themes Tyler Perry has thrown in that correlate directly with things like "keeping Christ in Christmas" debates taking place in this day-and-age.

The film is absolutely hilarious, yet heartfelt. I laughed, I teared-up, and I cheered in awe at the ending song. My audience was so into the film that no one happened to be texting, or anything! What a wonderful experience! The only thing missing from the film, in my opinion, was Madea's husband. He has always been my favorite character, and I was disappointed that he didn't appear whatsoever, even as a cameo. I couldn't help but take a star away for his absence.

It isn't the best movie of the year, but I'm happy to see Mr. Perry get his footing right, this time around. I will continue to watch these fun-filled movies.

Enjoy, and God bless, my friends! Praise The Lord and Merry Christmas!

So basically, A Madea Christmas was nothing more than a Hallmark movie with a higher production value. This was the first Tyler Perry movie I've seen, and I'm pretty sure this will be my last.

The improv scenes including Larry the Cable Guy is this films only saving grace. Other than that, it's a very mundane movie with a weak character arc and and lazy story telling.

I truly believe that Mr Perry used the writers from The Hallmark Channel and asked them to write a generic, by the numbers script and have himself and Larry improvise scenes that add nothing to the story. It just seemed lazy to me.

Let me first say that I am a fan of the man Tyler Perry. His struggles, his perseverance, his rise to fame are inspirational to me and to so many others. He has had a hand full of good movies: A Diary of Mad Black Woman, The Family that Preys and the first Why Did We Get Married. Then, he has several movies that have a character and/or a scene and/or a particular actor/actress I like in them. I usually enjoy these movies and could see them again. Then there are the truly awful movies like the second Why Did We Get Married.

Madea's Christmas is in the second group. I enjoyed this movie more than I expected to. There were some opportunities to laugh out loud. The cast was fine especially Anna Marie Horsford and Larry the Cable Guy. There were the poignant moments and once I actually had a tear trying to pop up in one eye. Seeing Blair from the Facts of Life was nice.

If you are expecting an Oscar worthy movie, you will get your feelings hurt. If you want a movie you can enjoy with your family (they could have edited out the use of a particular curse word), you will be okay.

The mother and the daughter make this movie almost unwatchable! The daughter not telling the mom about her relationship when she had countless times and her mother being SO annoying that you want to smack her! It's absolutely ridiculous! Madea is literally the only saving grace of this movie!

I've seen some Medea movies but this was the first time I've watched one in a movie theatre. I watched it with my movie theatre-working friend but since he was on call for a possible shift today, we saw it at a cinema for a competitor which meant we both paid admission. Anyway, there was plenty of laughter from the audience including my friend but I, myself, only chuckled during Medea's attempts at his department store job but by the time the scene changed to Alabama and the arrival of Larry the Cable Guy, I laughed plenty especially whenever he had dialogue with the Tyler Perry woman character! There's the putting-in-lessons about racism, a corporation's attempt to put "Christ" out of Christmas, and bullying to stew the pot to contrived effect though because it's meant to go down easy for about 90 minutes, one probably won't get too offended. Anyway, Tyler Perry's A Medea Christmas is indeed pretty entertaining especially if you watched TV during the '80s and liked recognizing Lisa "Blair Warner" Whelchel from "The Facts of Life" or Anna Maria "Thelma Frye" Horsford from "Amen" while viewing this...