Big Mamma 2

Some of the greatest movie comedies of all time have revolved around men dressing up in drag and trying to pass themselves off as women ("Some Like It Hot" and "Tootsie" being the prime examples). Ironically, that's also been the basis for some of the worst comedies ever made ("White Chicks" being the prime example I can think of at the moment). Somewhere in the middle lie the Big Momma movies, both the original, made in 2000,and the sequel from 2006, creatively entitled "Big Momma's House 2." Once again, Martin Lawrence stars as the FBI agent who this time goes undercover as a nanny to the children of a man who may be involved in some sort of major threat to national security (yawn!).

In turns of its storyline, the movie falls somewhere between "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Mary Poppins," with Big Momma managing to heal the rift in the family and making the neglectful father a model parent by the end of the film. The crime scenario is beyond stupid and leads to a whole host of idiotic slapstick scenes involving Big Momma taking on the gun-wielding bad guys, but if you have a high level of tolerance for this sort of thing, "Big Momma's House 2" should provide you with a good share of laughs amid all the clunkers.

Lawrence exhibits a great deal of energy in the role of Big Momma, but he never brings the kind of insight and believability to the part that Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis or Dustin Hoffman managed to do in their respective turns at cross dressing comedy. Unfortunately, Lawrence's portrayal is all surface imitation, utterly devoid of the kind of subtle shading that might suggest he had actually gotten in touch with his character. This film would be a trifle less innocuous if it hadn't been done so much better already.

This movie really wasn't that funny... but it wasn't awful, either. The plot was decent, a masterpiece compared to Deuce Bigalow 2.

But the main focus of the movie, "Big Momma" is boring. Martin Lawerence's idea of "Big Momma" seems to be randomly squealing and saying: "Ooh, girl..." and acting like a stereotypical black woman... fat, annoying, and loud. You know the stereotype I'm talking about it. This black woman is in every movie, but there isn't an actual black person that acts like Big Momma or Queen Latifah. The character is just a one-dimensional joke that falls flat quickly, and I guess as he/she is the main plot then the movie itself falls flat.

The funniest character, a kid named Stuart I believe, didn't get enough screen time.

I was disappointed to see the talented Kat Dennings again typecast into the "rebellious 15 or 16 year old teenager" role that she nailed in 40-year-old virgin. She's talented and sexy... I think it's time that someone gave her a real role, and let her play a character closer to her real age.

I wouldn't really recommend this movie, because it's just not very funny.

This film has its high points but not too many. It is gonna appeal more to the kids than the adults. Martin Lawrence does not seem put the same effort into the sequel. The kids provide most of the entertainment as the adults phone in their performances. Not as enjoyable as the original and the script not as sharp. Would not waste money on going to the cinema, save it and wait till it comes out on DVD. Martin Lawrence seems to have run out of good films, have not seen him in one for quite some time. On the whole the children will laugh more than the adults, there is enough to keep the adults mildly entertained but is not a barrel load of laughs. Good but could have been so much more.

If you're looking for an intellectual comedy or even something with some actual substance to it, this is not the movie to go to. It is the type of movie you go to, to turn off your brain and just take in some escapist entertainment. It does the job decently, better than most of the other light comedies out there. But what really surprises is how relatively few stupid moments come throughout the movie. A lesser-quality movie would have gone for the easy jokes about dorky white people vs. smooth black people. A lesser flick would have had some of the characters be less perceptive and observant than they actually ended up turning out to be. Poorer-quality fare would have turned this movie into something approaching blaxploitation, where all parties involved ended up humiliated by the experience.

This didn't do any of the aforementioned. Certain characters who could have been written as dumber were actually written as credibly perceptive. Certain scenarios that could have been played out as ridiculous ended up being plausible. There was less of a black/white good vs. evil conundrum going on in this movie, and the suspense involved actually seemed worth it instead of just being suspense for suspense's sake. I don't think there was one moment in the whole film where I was rolling my eyes going, "OH COME ON," the way I was throughout the last film I was obliged to go see, this year's remake of Last Holiday.

Had the premise been more original, had the comedy been more sharply written, more intelligent, I would have been inclined to give this comedy ten stars. It really is one of the better commercial movies to be released in Hollywood over the last five years. It even manages to be better than its predecessor. However, the comedy was actually quite dull, pedestrian, uninvolved, and unintellectual, which means it earns six stars out of ten. Just barely passable, but a heck of a lot better than its contemporaries.

After settling down into a desk job inside the FBI, former Field Agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) defies orders to stay out of the investigation of his former partners death and travels to Orange County, California to go undercover as Big Momma, working for an unhappy woman (Emily Proctor) who is under investigation for the murder. Little did he realise that he would become attached to the dysfunctional family

After pouring myself a nice hot cup of tea, I settled down in the comfy chair of Screen 1 to brace myself for the print check and hopefully have some harmless viewing. The result; A relatively brain dead projectionist trying to get to grips of where the last hour and a half of his life disappeared to. Now, to tell you the truth, I've never been much of a big fan of Martin Lawrence to start with but, like Jeremy Clarkson driving from London to Edinburgh and back ECONOMICALLY, shocks are everywhere. For the first time ever, I actually found Martin Lawrence's humour quite funny. Giving the dog a bowlful of tequila gave me a bit of a tickle, as did Big Momma's 'Baywatch' style slow-mo run.

This is probably the only plus side on a film which lacked the power to keep a rather basic storyline going. The characters created weren't complex enough. The family consisted of three children. One who was 3 and wasn't able to speak, which you undoubtedly knew he would by the end. The 8 year old girl was a wannabe dancer, and there was a troubled teen, who would stop her rebellious ways by the end of the movie. Emily Proctor's acting throughout the film was, to be truthful, pretty lame. It's like she took Calleigh Duquesne's character from CSI: Miami and just took all of the weapons expertise out of it. No original work was added to the character.

To sum up, this is a sequel that should have been left WELL alone. If you are of the type of mind that requires a film that will challenge you, I'd look elsewhere. Laughter is guaranteed as this film's storyline is clearly based around Big Momma, allowing Martin Lawrence breathing space to play with the character, but there were never any genuine references to the original film.