Temptation Reviews
Top CriticPerry has some worthwhile filmic models-Temptation gestures at Woody Allen in its setup, and Douglas Sirk in its melodrama-but he isn't even in the same star cluster as those greats.
Perry's film lags and limps along its two-hour runtime before finally going whole hog on one of the most dizzyingly weird final acts in recent cinematic history.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
The mixed tones don't quite meld; While Smollet-Bell is fine, the broad comedy is so sporadic it feels out of place.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Movie Nation
Adding the no-talent Kim Kardashian to his sass and semonette formula was a mistake. Casting four dull leads was a bigger one.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
And really, who better to shill for the institution of marriage than 43-year-old bachelor Perry, who uses homosexuality as a punch line (or symbol of evil decadence) and HIV as a cheap plot gimmick?
The first half is a functional (if exceedingly predictable) melodrama before devolving, just as predictably, into a cautionary cartoon.
Tyler Perry's insane, inane Old Testament-style morality tale.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
Blu-ray.com
Should've been left short and sinister. Embellishing the material with superfluous detail only manages to water down the movie's inviting soap opera decadence.
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| Original Score: C
Antagony & Ecstasy
There are many problems with the opening two-thirds of Temptation; an infinity of problems. But the biggest is that it's immoderately boring.
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| Original Score: 3/10
Common Sense Media
Soapy melodrama has mixed messages about love and marriage.
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| Original Score: 2/5
A few wild, third-act twists give Perry's middling melodrama some soap-opera kick. But all the finger-wagging sure does get tiring after a while.
Full Review
| Original Score: C+
Tyler Perry's Temptation is an awful, awful film and while it is easy to mock and dismiss, it is also kind of a shame to behold.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
Limp pacing and countless shots of Washington's skyline plague the narrative.
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| Original Score: 2/5
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Tyler Perry is a moralist who doesn't have sense enough to engage us by making sin look like fun.
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| Original Score: 1/4
SSG Syndicate
Straitlaced and sermonizing, this is a sluggish cautionary tale about deviating from righteous church teachings.
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| Original Score: 3/10
If Perry has had one strength as a dramatist, it's been his willingness to empathize with villains as well as victims. In Temptation, he lacks even that.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
Look, we know what's going to happen. The movie's called Temptation, okay? Yet we still have to sit through more than an hour of flirty glances and repetitive conversations between Judith and Harley until anything vaguely adulterous occurs.
Full Review
| Original Score: 0/4
BlackFilm.com
Not even the stunt casting of reality star Kim Kardashian can improve this bloated, soulless and unexciting novella.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
Perry's ongoing disinterest in improving as a filmmaker is now seemingly part of his unshakable belief in himself, his insistence on doing his thing his way.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
