Madea's Big Happy Family (2011)

So much average

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I don't know why there are so many negative reviews for this movie. I really liked it and was laughing the whole time.The only thing I didn't really like was how there was a funny scene and then after that there would be a serious scene, it doesn't make sense. This doesn't affect my rating though because the movie was too comical for me to be lower than a 10. I noticed that there are a few other movies with pretty much the same story. I'm certainly going to watch those, but as others said it's sort of stupid to make the same movie more than once, unless it's a sequel and it's different.Other than these two things, I really enjoyed this movie and I would recommend it to anyone who likes comedies.

It isn't a secret that I am not a fan of wunderkind-extraordinaire (cough), Tyler Perry, although I've watched all of his movies hoping that he would one day "get the hang of directing" and make something relatively worthwhile. He did just that with his film -- For Colored Girls -- that immediately preceded Madea's Big Happy Family (and how sad is it that FCG was one of Perry's lowest-grossing films too date -- was it too serious for his target audience?).Madea's Big Happy Family is a regression; but it is on the same-leveled plateau as ALL of the other Madea-titled films. Perry's problem is that he continues to churn-out the same type of film over-and-over again with familiar situations, similar scenarios and over-the-top characters. He appears to know what his audience expects and/or wants from his films and so he gives that to them; but this is detrimental to a filmmaker because he isn't stretching or going beyond.Big Happy Family gives us the same, negatively stereotyped characters found in all of his work that presented anywhere else would be met with outrage. Perry's characters are all one-dimensional -- we have either good and saintly OR bad and wicked OR unimportant and bland. Most of them complain (loudly) that something is wrong while caring NOTHING about the person (family) next to them.Although the film carries Madea's (Tyler Perry, himself) name she isn't really the central character in this one -- it is more of a ensemble piece for Madea's saintly/ailing niece Shirley (Loretta Devine - Crash, "Grey's Anatomy", I Am Sam) and her throng of children that Madea has to set right.The film gives us one of the WORST, most-awful characters (the hate-filled witch is played by Teyana Taylor) to grace our screens in 2011 although she is luckily not a member of the family (she's an ex). The moral message of the pic keeps me from hating the film (Devine's character and arc helps the film); but I am still waiting for Perry to give us something truly important.His love for Precious was highly apparent and I am certain he dreams of giving audiences a prestige picture like that one day; but it isn't going to happen with his vanity attached to every film title he directs.

I have to make a confession. I watch Tyler Perry's Madea films. OK, JUST HEAR ME OUT! Now, I think they're all FAR from perfect films, but at the very least, I do enjoy watching the portions featuring Madea. Such was the case of my latest viewing, Madea's Big Happy Family. It's a bit embarrassing to say, but let's just get down to my review.First of all, we have a tangled web of subplots. The mother of a family, Shirley, is devastated to discover that her case of cancer has worsened, prompting her to plan a family dinner to tell her children about her condition. This includes her daughters, Kimberly and Tammy. Kimberly is a secretive woman (Improperly focused character #1), and Tammy is having trouble with her marriage, and her two disobedient children. This also includes Byron, a man on an unlucky streak, having served jail time for selling drugs, and behind on paying child support to his insufferably obnoxious ex-girlfriend. There's also some drama between Cora and Mr. Brown. But leave it to Madea to set things straight, and not be afraid to beat the living hell out of anyone who steps out of line.This movie is textbook Tyler Perry. As always, he gathers together a cast that could have been quite good, with good material, but their characters are inconsistently written, and their focus tends to blur because the script is overly cluttered with subplots. It's not a problem because they're hard to follow (They really aren't), but it's because it doesn't give these characters all the attention they deserve.This isn't even mentioning Tyler Perry's ubiquitous switch in tone. His rhythm moves as comedic scene, dramatic scene, comedic scene, etc. I think the comedy portions are better than the dramatic portions, but the flip flopping between the two makes things feel dull. At the end of the day, I didn't emotionally connect with the story like I feel I should have. For once, I wish Perry would construct a film that's sure of what it wants to be.I give it ** out of ****

If your favorite Tyler Perry character is Madea, this movie is custom made for you! I am one of those people who's always thinking "he should have more Madea in his movies or should do a whole movie with Madea". Well, my prayers were answered. It was laugh out loud funny! To those reviewers who is on Spike Lee's side, I wanna say there is a time and a place for everything. Spike's movies has it's place. They are political conscious geared and we need that. We also need realistic comedies to de-stress us, and movies with a message to uplift us and make us think. So there's a place for Tyler's movies as well. You can't get mad at certain filmmakers because they aren't Spike Lee clones. Then you'd be writing crap about them not being original. If you wanna watch Spike's stuff, go ahead. If you don't wanna laugh and cry at the same time, go home! Everything isn't for you. Why would we want just serious political conscious movies all the time? And for you reviewers saying he's just doing the same thing all over again, what director do you know that doesn't stick to their particular style of writing? I do think Tyler could tune up some of his screenplay writing, but hey, he's used to writing for the stage, not the screen. I think some of the dialogue between the guys ranting about the women could be cut way down. He usually drags those out way too long for my taste. Are some of his characters stereotypes? Of course! What movie doesn't contain some stereotypical elements? Anyways, u haters, get over yourself!