so you could probably tell by the title that i recently saw tyler perry's "meet the browns" and was really disappointed. i don't even know why i expected something great...maybe it's because it pulled in 20 million on it's opening weekend...maybe it's because some part of me really wants tyler perry to be successful. maybe i just was happy to get out of the house without baby tied to my hip. regardless, this movie has to be his worst-BY FAR!!!
so for those who have seen it, let's go thru it, bit by bit. if you haven't, please do not let me deter you. anyhoo, all of tyler's madea-laden plots are all the same - down and out, weary and worn black woman (usually abused in some way)....dashingly handsome man comes in on shiny white horse...he saves the day...they fall in love...madea makes you laugh...all is well in the world.
and i was willing to roll with this....but with "meet the browns," the goal of realism wasn't even attempted. and that made me mad! angela bassett played (i forgot her name) with 3 kids and 3 baby daddies. (what's up with this theme of sad black mums and trifling black dads?) in the first movie, the main character didn't have any children, but her husband fathered 2 secret kids outside of their marriage with his mistress. in the second, that chick had 2 kids by 2 men and was so down on her luck, she had to live with madea. now in this one, there are 3....and of course, they are dirt poor living in chicago projects alongside her very loud and inappropriately dressed, bi-polar latina friend. this friend was so streotypically wack, it was painful, in every outfit, her breasts were spilling out...and she hardly ever matched. she was crazy too...i mean coo-coo for coco puffs crazy! angela loses her job and the lights get cut off. they barely have any food to eat.
by chance, angela's father dies and someone sends her some bus tickets to come down to georgia for his funeral. when she gets there, she is greeted by her 'family', most of who are sweet...but jenifer lewis (vera) is a spitfire. *unrealistic item # 1* angela's uncle picks them up from the bus station with his daughter. once everyone is back at the house, vera looks at this woman (her neice) and asks who she is and who her mother is. she replies madea. you mean to tell me that a woman doesn't know her very grown neice OR who her mother is? how does your brother have a child and you don't bother to inquire about this until she's about 35? nonetheless, everyone discovers that their father used to be a pimp. (again, with the crappy black man image) also, the uncle has a knack for dressing in really nutzy colors and patterns, presumably from another era. i found myself literally frowning at him when he was on screen...feeling kinda like...
enter rick fox. he's so handsome, he's un-handsome - if that makes sense. his looks are too nice. nonetheless, he automatically falls for angela and wants to help her basketball playing son make the most of his sporting ability for the sheer joy of helping in abnormally grandiose ways. long story short, the pimp father leaves angela an old, beaten-down house. the house is so unlivable, angela discards it like trash. fast forward, angela and her kids go back to chicago with a fist full of cash from madea's daughter. *unrealistic iten # 2* she never seems to get another job....or steadily trying to achieve some type of stability. obviously, the money wasn't going to last too long, because she goes crawling to her son's father begging for money. he refuses her. then later, he randomly shows up at her door being very nice. he offers to give her some money in exchange for sex. the son walks in and is angered. after baby-daddy # 1 leaves, the son vows to pull his family out of the bowels of poverty by................you guessed it, running with the wrong crowd to sell drugs. but wait, handsome chases him down in the street to warn him of the bad choice he is making.
SIDEBAR::::: i have an issue with sons feeling like they have to rescue their mothers and siblings from destitution. it is not a child's place to have to worry about how to survive and drag his family along. this came up on eb the celeb's relationship week forum. it bothers me because some of these men-children get locked into that 'gotta-save-them' mentality and it causes problems in future relationships for lack of the ability to let go. and of course, this child's desire to 'save them' ends up getting him shot.
*unrealistic item #3* as i said the son realized he made a bad choice, and when he went to tell his drug dealing friend he was out, some tough guy rolls up and just starts shooting. well, miraculously, he's not critically injured....but the next time you see him after being released from the hospital...was on the basketball court. WTH!?!?! could he at least have struggled thru some rehab? maybe limped around for a bit?
well, handsome comes lurking around again and he and angela begin dating. then out of nowhere (and during ledisi's song "alright') they move back to georgia, where handsome has managed to restore her beat up house into a fabulous new work of beauty, along with some donations from the church. *unrealistic item # 4* she stills has no job or monetary assistance, yet sustains this fabulous new life. handsome and angela have a spat and stop speaking. son gets drafted into the basketball league AND gets to take college courses. angela realizes her and handsome's spat was just a misunderstanding....they literally kiis and make up....next and last scene is their wedding. *unrealistic items # 5, until....* handsome mentioned having 3 kids, they never appear. madea makes a cameo on the news as she's trying to elude the cops in a high speed chase.....what was the point? it was so "out of nowhere." and that daughter of hers had the worst fake emotion when madea was seemingly being captured by the police. and i'm still trying to figure out WHAT MAN on this green earth would pay to have a woman's house completely refurbished when they are not even in a committed relationship? i mean he took that house from death and turned it into a house suited for "better homes & gardens.". all of this went on while she was in chicago before and during they even started semi-dating. then they "broke up" he just tucks his tail in between his legs and goes on about his business until she realized they fought over something dumb?
the movie was a M-E-S-S!!!!! i am so bothered because i know tyler perry has made a skillion dollars off of his creation madea. and once he proved he could dish out some entertaining stuff, he was just handed opportunity after opportunity, but the quality has gone into the toilet (please don't get me started on the atrocity of "house of payne" on tbs)
i want him to be successful...but at what expense? the parallel images he's portraying are offensive and they're not even funny. i can personally overlook SOME offensive stuff if i can charge it to humor (a la dave chappelle) but this mess never made me crack a smile...at least not when i was supposed to. i found myself laughing at all the wrong times, like when son miraculously recovered, or when angela and handsome got married. i'm sure other movie patrons thought i was nuts.....but i am really upset at this.
******WHAT ARE OUR THOUGHTS? IF YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE, WHAT DID YOU THINK? IF YOU HAVEN'T, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF TYLER PERRY'S MATERIAL PRIOR TO THIS? SPEAK ON IT..........*********
15 comments:
I'm glad I didnt go see this one. All my friends were down my back about going to support. Why do I have to go support because its a Tyler Perry movie. Now dont get me wrong. I love him to death, but this was the first movie I had absolutely no urge to go see and I didn't. Glad to learn I didnt miss too much.
Also thanks for the little shout. I hope you have a good week.
You are the 10th person who I know who said that it was garbage. So, I know I won't be going. I'm not a fan of Tyler Perry's. I did enjoy "Why Did I Get Married." I don't like the show on TBS. It's just terrible. I wish him well but his projects suck.
Whew, this one does sound like a mish mash of wackness! I was through with him after I wasted $12.50 seeing "Why Did I Get Married". I know he's got that huge mansion to pay for, but seriously, he needs to take a year off and actually write a good script.
tyler perry doesn't believe in plots. and therein lies the problem. he just says "plot holes so big you can drive an airbus inside?? ehhhh... whatev." and people go see it. his "best" one yet i hear was why did i get married and i still thought that was awful. the movies are always lacking critical points of realism. wacktastic. "if you haven't, please do not let me deter you." yeah right. PLEASE BE DETERRED PEOPLE!!
Thanks for the review. I thought that I wanted to see this movie after seeing "Why Did I Get Married." Prior to "WDIGM" I had never seen any of Tyler Perry's movies. I was a bit hesitant to see "Meet the Browns" because I just can't see Rick Fox as a real actor. Plus, something about his face irks me. So now that you're saying that it really isn't worth my time, I don't think I'll be seeing it!
Thanks PCD!! :-)
I saw the movie and I have to say I was in a word- disappointed. I liked "Why did I get Married" so I expected more from him. The only real time I laughed was the 10 minutes about Madea. I don't know what it is but I just prefer that character, maybe because my hubby hates it.
Anyway I think Tyler Perry has to lay off two things, the down and out woman and the Upper Middle class black folk. If I were a YT and saw his movies I would think that was all Black folks were. Either too poor to pay the bills or rich and overindulgent. I think I may have to boycott him for a bit, but you know folks won't.
What happen to the good old days of Spike joints, you always left with a message...
@ eb...i think people just really want to see something good, so they hope ofr the best...too bad it wasn't good. (*and you're welcome*)
@ 12kyle...tyler has just disappointed me a lot lately. i didn't really like WDIGM...it wasn't terrible, but again, it wasn't close to realistic
@ los angelista...I AGREE! like beyonce, take a break, boo. come up with some quality. and i am going to use your word "mish mash". i like it! *wink*
@ jameil...well, i just didn't want to discourage any die-hard fans. i'm sure someone on earth liked it besides tyler himself-lol!
@ BGG...you are so right about rick fox! his acting is bleh and his face...i just can't sum it up. he's not ugly, but i certainly didn't swoon over him.
@ F-it...ok, you said it! there was this white couple in there and they looked so confused the entire time. tyler baited them in with psuedo-comedic commercials, then left them dazed & confused...unlike spike who probably just scares them comnpletely-LOL!
Good review. I haven't seen it. I loved Why Did I get Married? But I would say that Diary and Family Reunion were definitely predictable and followed a formula. Down and out woman saved after re-connecting with family and an insanely hot blue collar knight in shining armor. It's Perry's thing and has been successful to date. I think he'll have to branch out at some point....
oh yes I forgot to say this last time. I don't see anything attractive about Rick Fox, he's a strobelight honey.
I think he and 'Nessa have the same botox dr. hhehe.
For some reason I had no desire to see this movie. The only TP movies I really enjoyed were Diary of A MBW because I could relate to the main character and why did I get married because, again, I related with one of the characters, Jill's to be exact. You brought some very interesting points to the table, though. I never stopped to think about how poorly the Black men were being portrayed in his films until you mentioned it.
lol
i guess i aint catchin this one
and im so with u on laughing at inappropriate moments
im always doin that ish
I didn't see "Meet The Browns," but my mother did. She said she liked it, but Rick Fox's acting was pitiful. I think Tyler Perry's stage plays are better than his movies. The first time I watched "House of Payne," it was awful. From time to time I'll watch it, only because the guy who plays the father on the show can't act & I think that's hilarious.
@ traveldiva...WDIGM was cool, but i didn't think it was very realistic either. the men seemed to get away with murder and the women were bashed for their wrongdoings. i wish my husband WOULD paternity test my daughter behind my back and we just focus on my working hours...and the way he handled that assistant of his....something wasn't right! see, you got me rambling on about that movie-lol!
@ F-it...*DEAD* @ strobelight honey....i'm on the floor!
@ queen...ya know, i kinda rushed into seeing this. at the last minute, i was given some baby-free time so i just ran out of the door and wanted to see something to make me laugh. it wasn't a well-thought-out decision. :-(
@ dejenae...i didn't even feel bad about my outbursts...it was just that wacky, hee hee!
@ park avenue...my friend did say that this movie looked like a play on film. i didn't get it at first, but then again, i didn't know all of tp's plays. this was one and now some of the wackosity makes sense.
You know, I did see this movie and in my personal opinion, I enjoyed it a great deal and appreciated it for what it was..... A MOVIE! I've never found Rick Fox attractive, but being that it was his acting debut, I thought he did an alright job.
I guess for me, I didn't go expecting it to be some autobiographical tale. I expected, like with any other movie, for it to be as far from reality as possible. While the scenarios are becoming a bit redundant, I still enjoyed the perspective.
All in all, I enjoyed the movie and actually wouldn't mind seeing it again. The bloopers they showed during the ending credits had me laughing so hard, I was in TEARS!
I didn't see it and had no desire to. I kind of got over the Tyler train. It just seemed to be a lot of the same thing over and over again. Overdone. I like that he shows another side to black folk (although sometimes a bit overdone) but it's too Bold and the Beautiful meets Martin. I need more Soul Food type tales.
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