This isn't a movie: it's a buffet at which... Perry piles your plate with spoonfuls of absurd melodrama, a taste of gritty urban drama, a heaping of cheap cartoon, and a big side of corn.
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (2008)
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Reviews Counted:52
Fresh:15
Rotten:37
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: Angela Bassett's considerable charms can't compensate for Meet the Browns' incessant melodrama and scattered narrative threads.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for drug content, language including sexual references, thematic elements and brief violence.
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Mar 21, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $41,939,392
Synopsis: Adapted from the stage play, TYLER PERRY'S MEET THE BROWNS is a touching family drama and very funny romantic comedy rolled into one. Angela Bassett gives one of the best performances of her career... Adapted from the stage play, TYLER PERRY'S MEET THE BROWNS is a touching family drama and very funny romantic comedy rolled into one. Angela Bassett gives one of the best performances of her career as Brenda, a single mother trying to raise three children, from three different men, in the Chicago projects. After the plant where she works with her best friend, Cheryl (Sofia Vergara), closes down, she can no longer afford her rent, electricity, or day care. But when a surprise letter arrives telling her that the father she never knew has died, and inviting her to the reading of the will and the funeral in Georgia, she has nowhere else to go, so she and her kids, Michael (Lance Gross), Tosha (Chloe Bailey), and Lena (Mariana Tolbert), head down south to meet her half-sisters and -brothers. Her newfound extended family includes the overemotional Vera (Jenifer Lewis), who is suspicious of Brenda; the wacky Leroy Brown (David Mann), who mangles the English language and wears some hysterical outfits; and the steady L.B. (Frankie Faison), who is married to the sweet and caring Sarah (Margaret Avery) and has become the patriarch now that Pops Brown has died. In the meantime, Michael, a high school basketball star, is being pursued by Harry (Rick Fox), a talent scout who is also interested in Brenda. Bassett is outstanding as the dedicated mother who sacrifices her personal life in order to do whatever she can for her children. But Mann nearly steals the show as the wild and crazy Leroy, especially during the funeral scene (outtakes of which run during the closing credits). Perry, the creator of such hit films as DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN and MADEA'S FAMILY REUNION as well as the television series HOUSE OF PAYNE (all of which feature recurring characters), also appears in the film as Uncle Joe and, in a riotous subplot, Madea, who is on the run from the law. [More]
Starring: Angela Bassett, Rick Fox, Margaret Avery, Frankie Faison
Starring: Angela Bassett, Rick Fox, Margaret Avery, Frankie Faison, Jenifer Lewis, Lance Gross, Sofia Vergara, Tamela Mann, David Mann, Tyler Perry, Irma P. Hall, Mariana Tolbert, Chloe Bailey
Director: Tyler Perry
Director: Tyler Perry
Screenwriter: Tyler Perry
Producer: Reuben Cannon
Composer: Aaron Zigman
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
Whatever progress the man was making, Browns is a Madea-sized big fat step backward.
Overall, 'Tyler Perry's Meet The Browns' is not as multi-layered and spiritual uplifting as a the previous films, but it will still appeal to his usual fan base.
[Perry's] films are hardly realistic, but they aren’t exercises in pure escapism either. They offer comic relief and moral correction. And if they feel corny and hokey at times...that is partly because they make everyone who sees them,
Unlike Diary, the drama here is buoyant enough to handle the contrast of its too-silly slapstick.
Meet the Browns is lots of fun -- light on the Jesus-ifying and heavy on showcasing some very talented African-American performers whom audiences don’t get to see often enough. You’ll be glad to have been introduced.
After the enjoyable Why Did I Get Married?, Meet the Browns is a woeful setback.
On top of everything else, the direction is sloppy, the script is forced, and the whole thing feels like a bad hallmark film.
perhaps Perry's time in the limelight may be shorter than he -- or his fans -- think.
Meet the Browns, the latest Tyler Perry film, has a good heart. But it's a mess of a movie.
By refusing to really get his hands dirty or to show the truth of the matter, Perry's work appears shallow and uninformed, thus begging the question: Is his work honest?
Perry might be out to create a community spirit in theaters across the country, but, again, that doesn't excuse his thick-fingered mangling of dramatic expression and his questionable taste in racial caricatures. Meet the Browns is a stinker.
Meet the Browns deserves its box office glory, Madea's clunky cameo notwithstanding.
To appreciate Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, there's really only one requirement: Loosen up.
Eventually something's got to give, and the slapdash feel of Meet the Browns hints that [Perry] might need to give himself a break.
Well, it took five tries, but Tyler Perry has finally made a good movie.
Does take a preachy direction in the final half, it's otherwise a fulfilling experience with all around great performances with some raucous laughs to be had...
Latest News for Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
July 27, 2008:
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June 27, 2008:
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June 26, 2008:
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
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