Boo! A Madea Halloween

By 2016, Movie Fans had the opportunity to see the mad black woman known as Madea put her unique personal stamp on, among other situations, a family reunion, jail, a witness protection program and Christmas. But how will she make it through a wild and wacky Halloween? "Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween" (PG-13, 1:43) answers that question in typical Madea fashion – her way! Actor, producer, director, screenwriter, playwright, author, and songwriter Tyler Perry's most famous and enduring character is rough around the edges, but the old lady is just being herself – and doing what she thinks is right. Mabel "Madea" Simmons gets through life the best she can, no matter what anyone else thinks about her, and she's going make the people around her act right – with insults and by force, if necessary.

Madea (Perry) is the aunt of Atlanta attorney Brian Simmons (also played by Perry), who is newly divorced and has his hands full with his rebellious and disrespectful 17-year-old daughter, Tiffany (Diamond White). Tiffany's friends (Bella Thorne and Lexy Panterra) are planning to go to a nearby college fraternity's Halloween party and Tiffany wants to sneak out of the house to join them, along with her reluctant friend, Aday (Liza Koshy), who is sleeping over. Brian gets wind of the plan, but he has to go out of town, so he bribes Madea to spend the night in his house to make sure the girls stay out of trouble. Madea shows up at Brian's with her cantankerous brother (Brian's dad), Joe (Perry again), her marijuana-smoking cousin, Aunt Bam (Cassi Davis), and their meek friend, Hattie (Patrice Lovely).

Tiffany comes up with a plan to outsmart "the old people" (as she derisively refers to them) and sneak away to go to the party. Madea soon realizes that Tiffany and Aday are gone, so she gathers her posse (except for Joe, who decides to hold down the fort) and crashes the party looking for the two girls. She doesn't find them, but manages to ruin the party. The president of the frat (Yousef Erakat) wants to get even, but you have to get out of your coffin pretty early in the morning to fool Madea, and there's a scary price to pay for even trying. Besides the theme of the party, the Halloween angle comes in with Aunt Bam stealing candy from trick-or-treaters and various characters taking advantage of the spooky nature of the holiday to formulate their plans to fool others and get what they want out of the evening.

"Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween" is a typically silly and fun Madea adventure… with some life lessons thrown in. Madea and her contemporaries are exaggerated stereotypes, not to be taken seriously, which gives the audience permission to just sit back, relax and enjoy the on-screen antics. Perry's script contains a few good jokes, but most of the humor comes from his direction and the actors' performances – namely, the way the characters speak and act towards each other – and the Halloween backdrop gives everyone plenty to work with. Brian is a loving and earnest, but ineffective dad, until the directness of Madea and her crew helps him see things a little differently. It all makes for another enjoyable Madea outing that stands on its own merits. "B"

Hellur there, Robbie K is back again and if you haven't guessed my next review is on the latest Tyler Perry "masterpiece". Madea, and all her lovable qualities, has been making audiences laugh for almost twenty years. Although many of her movies are essentially double dipped versions with a slight twist, the crossdressing writer continues to get people to flood into theaters almost every year. So, let's see if the mad woman can conquer a Halloween themed movie, shall we?

LIKES: • Madea smacking on young kids • Some clever jokes and timing • A change in setting…sort of

I'll come out and say that I'm not a die-hard fan of the series like others, but I'd also be lying if I said I didn't enjoy her brand of justice. Madea's Halloween has plenty of moments where juvenile, annoying teenage characters meet her wrath. Smacks in the back of the head, fists flying into rubber noses, and intense threats are just some of the tactics the old woman uses to scare the daylights out the brats. It's silly fun that will keep many laughing most of the movie, but Perry sneaks a few morals into the mix to give some of the scenes a point. Older generations will surely enjoy seeing the immature generation get some sense beaten into them. And when Madea isn't laying the smack down, she also manages to get some clever jokes into the mix. Amidst the mindless ramblings that come out of our characters 90% of the time, Madea gets a few good lines in to maximize the laughs. Often this is in the form on an insult or a rebuttal to an accusation, but Perry has some witty moments that had me riling. Her brother Joe had me laughing even more, primarily due to his well-timed confession though I wish he could have a cleaner mouth at times. Ms. Hattie and Aunt Bam also contribute some of the laughs, rounding out the comedy to appeal to as many people as possible. Finally, it was nice to see Madea leave her home for…somebody else's home. Madea's Halloween hasn't moved too far from her hood, but it integrated a new theme into the setting to freshen things up. The spoof on killer clowns, the integration of a frat house, and putting some ghost themed tricks into the mix finally broke the mold on the family drama that every other installment has. Halloween trades the tearful, preachy character moments for more laughs, giving it a more positive energy that doesn't make you want to take a nap. This new approach will be refreshing for most and may be the new formula to Madea's success.

DISLIKES: • Annoying characters and antics • Rambling gets old • Editing

Tyler Perry certainly knows how to develop annoying character, and Madea's Halloween does not get an exception. As mentioned earlier, the teenagers are annoying representations of today's youth, portrayed as being obsessed with booze, sex, and back talking parents. The main girl Tiffany takes lead in this category. Her extreme rebellious attitude leads to over dramatic and overacted antics that rubbed my nerves raw. The rest of the cohort doesn't fare much better, with the exception of one, that serve little more than becoming fodder for Madea and having audience members say "Oh no she didn't!" And I'll get bashed for this, but Ms. Hattie was too much for me in this movie. In her past appearances, the small woman's high pitched voice was timed well to be fun and funny, but she was too much for me in this film. Her antics were too overdone and her voice just rubbed me the wrong way. If you like her though, then good news, she's in this movie a lot. Something else that started rubbing me the wrong way was the rambling. Madea and company have many moments where all they do is gab, usually involving three to four people talking incoherently about drugs, sex, stupidity, drugs, sex, stupidity, police, crime, and stupidity. Then Madea comes in and shares her experience and the rambling starts again. Yes this is Madea and it has come to be expected, but usually there are some other things to break it up. Not the case in this film and the lack of balance quickly led to the ramblings getting stale and losing its comedic edge for me, though this wasn't the case for a lot of the audience. As for the editing, it is greatly skewed in this movie and quite poor to be honest. At least three times the movie was just extended sequences of rambling that did little for me other than add forty-five extra minutes to the movie, though it did have others laughing their heads off. Even more disappointing is that the Halloween theme is kind of lost to Madea's rambling and so much potential for jokes is lost to the old hat antics, which is just so sad. But with how much fun most will have with this movie, I don't think this will be an issue to most.

The Verdict:

Madeas Halloween is surprisingly fun and refreshing compared to her other works. It's filled with her characteristic rambling, corny insults, and the same types of jokes that have been played for years. Unfortunately for this reviewer, the Halloween potential was lost to annoying characters and rambling, which only extended the run time for me. While this is certain to win top box office this weekend, this reviewer thinks this movie is best left to TBS/TNT showings.

My scores are: Comedy/Horror: 6.5 Movie Overall: 5.5

Another "Madea" movie that I hadn't already seen. But sitting through a Tyler Perry "Madea" movie marathon would rectify that. I have to say, though that I harbored absolutely zero expectations, as the last five movies I've sat through today have been questionable at best.

Writer Tyler Perry finally ditched the serious issues of racism, domestic abuse, etc. From the previous movies, and focused on good old fashioned comedy, with a dash of Halloween horror here. And it was nice, because these movies are better as comedies and for making you laugh, more so than being serious social commentary movies. "Boo! A Madea Halloween" has been the best of the six "Madea" movies I've watched today.

And isn't everything just better with zombies in it? "Boo! A Madea Halloween" has zombies in it, and it worked out nicely.

This 2017 foray into the "Madea" franchise didn't have a whole lot of familiar performers on the cast list. The only familiar faces on the cast list, for me at least, were Tyler Perry and Cassi Davis. The acting performances in "Boo! A Madea Halloween" were fair, as they have been in every single movie.

My rating of writer and director Tyler Perry's 2016 movie "Boo! A Madea Halloween" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016)

1/2 (out of 4)

Brian (Tyler Perry) can't control or even say no to his 17-year-old daughter Tiffany (Diamond White) so he asks Madea (Perry) to sit with her while he goes out of town. Daddy is worried she will sneak off to a frat party, which she does and of course Madea must follow her.

You have to respect Tyler for what he has accomplished in his career. I will admit that this here was my first Madea movie and I will admit that I hated it. In fact, it was one of the worst comedies that I've ever seen. At the same time, I can respect the fact that this film as well as other Madea movies are quite popular and Tyler at least gives his fans what they want.

With that said, this is without question one of the worst comedies in recent memory. From what I've read this was filmed in six-days, which is rather remarkable for a film made today. What's so bad about this movie is that the screenplay is just so uneven and so unfunny. I mean, the final sequence is basically a bunch of young adults being terrified with rape. Yeah, real funny.

The entire movie was one failed laugh after another and all of it can go back to the screenplay. There are scenes that just drag on for no apparent reason and then there are scenes where the "joke" just gets dragged out to the point where you wish you'd hear someone yell cut. I honestly laughed at maybe two things here and everything else was just so forced and juvenile.

Again, I can respect that this series has its fans but I honestly can't see why. I'm not going to judge the entire series off of one movie but this didn't really make me want to check out others.

As expected this movie was based on various stereotypes of the black community. After all Tyler Perry's entire career is based on the exploitation of racial stereotypes. While I don't condone that I have to say that the movie was funnier than expected. It definitely had its moments.

As far as I can tell most people watched this movie mainly because one of the protagonists is a famous Youtube personality (Yousef Erakat). I personally am not too fond of his Youtube videos but his acting performance was solid. Gotta give it to him.

Final verdict: Not quite re-watchable but it's a solid comedy.