Nothing that happens seems the least bit believable, and everything is brash and loud. All that's missing is the laugh track.
Madea's Family Reunion (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:17
Fresh:7
Rotten:10
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion is sincere in its positive intentions, but leaves something to be desired as a film.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for mature thematic material, domestic violence, sex and drug references
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Feb 24, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $63,231,524
Synopsis: Tyler Perry follows up his DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN with more of his unique fusion of soapy melodrama, poetry, spirituality, romance, and raucous humor based on his popular stage play. This time... Tyler Perry follows up his DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN with more of his unique fusion of soapy melodrama, poetry, spirituality, romance, and raucous humor based on his popular stage play. This time around, the drama centers on a pair of half-sisters struggling to overcome the oppression of their materialistic mother (Lynn Whitfield). Weak-willed daughter Lisa (Rochelle Ayetes) is being pushed into marriage with an abusive investment banker (Blair Underwood), while Vanessa (Lisa Arrindell Anderson) is unable to trust the love of too-good-to-be-true Brian (Boris Kadjoe). It may be a bit jarring at first to veer from harrowing scenes of domestic abuse to hilarious scenes of Tyler in his dual role as the tough-talking grandma Madea (here also raising a troubled foster kid) and her flatulent brother Joe, but it works, especially when Cicely Tyson and poet Maya Angelou show up as old relatives at the reunion; their powerful presence provides the weight to anchor everything down. Hearing Tyson pour her heart out while addressing the young people at the reunion from the porch of an old slave shack--Angelou at her side--is an unforgettably moving experience. This is the work of a daringly original comedian and filmmaker; fearlessly confrontational and generous of heart (without being corny), MADEA is three kinds of great: gut-bustingly funny, socially progressive, and genuinely inspiring. [More]
Starring: Lynn Whitfield, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, Rochelle Ayetes, Maya Angelou
Starring: Lynn Whitfield, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, Rochelle Ayetes, Maya Angelou, Cicely Tyson, Boris Kadjoe, Blair Underwood
Director: Tyler Perry
Director: Tyler Perry
Screenwriter: Tyler Perry
Producer: Mike Upton, Reuben Cannon
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for Madea's Family Reunion
Perry's vaudevillian shamelessness and indifference to committee-approved taste are energizing and frequently jaw-dropping.
Tyler Perry's heart is in the right place, but he still has a tin ear.
Let's not sell Tyler Perry short. As the vinegar-witted Madea, he's a drag performer of testy charm, but in his overlit patchwork way he's also making the most primal women's pictures since Joan Crawford flexed her shoulder pads.
Family Reunion doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy or a drama and ends up as mostly a melodrama with scenes that would be embarrassing on a soap opera.
This movie's trailers promise a slapstick comedy about an obese black woman who takes no guff and enjoys beating people up. It isn't exactly, and that's a disappointment.
Too bad the story is so predictable and the big wedding scene, in which women dressed as angels dangle from the church ceiling strumming harps, is cornier than an Orville Redenbacher factory.
Like horror flicks or family films, Tyler Perry's Madea movies -- based on his enormously successful plays -- are a genre unto themselves, which means one thing: Either you are going to see them or you are not, and no review will change your mind.
Brimming with cliches, Madea, like Diary, has an undeniable appeal, for those who can stick with it, in its earnest and unfashionable conviction.
Some parts of Tyler Perry's new movie are better than others -- and all of it is better than Diary of a Mad Black Woman, his last one.
Anyone curious about all the fuss surrounding Perry is advised to track down a DVD of one of his stage productions; Madea, his big mama, is not working on the big screen.
The heavily melodramatic tone that predominates throughout much of the pic could have used more leavening with comic relief.
There's a ragged road-show texture to Madea's Family Reunion, which, along with the rest of the movie, would be easy to dismiss if one didn't suspect that it might be calculated.
No question, Tyler Perry knows what he's doing, and he's doing it better with each movie.
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