Big Momma's: Life Father Like Son

Yet again, I'm posting my original unedited and slightly longer review. And once again, check out the link below for the professionally edited review. As for the film itself, well, read on...

But, really, take a wild guess what I think about Big Mommas Part BLOODY 3!

From Channel24.co.za (Originally published 25 February 2010)

What it's about

Big Momma is back! This time with his/her/its rapper-wannabe son in tow as the two go undercover (enrolling in, would ya know it, an all-girl's-school in drag) to retrieve some pretty damning evidence to bring down a master criminal.

What we thought

Oh where to even begin with this unholy piece of -

OK! All right! Deep breaths everyone. Lets try and keep thing in perspective. It's not a holocaust, it's not an apartheid, it's not nuclear war, it's not Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It's just a movie. That's all it is: just a harmless piece of entertainment. It's just a little bit of multiplex fodder; something to keep the cash rolling in and the masses stupefied for a couple of hours. That's all. It's nothing to get worked up about. Right?

Right?

Well, maybe, maybe not. All I want to know is just how much more of this undiluted crap are we as audiences supposed to put up wit? I mean, really! Big Momma's: Like Father Like Son is unredeemably awful with absolutely nothing to recommend about it but what's really shocking is that this howling load of codswallop is the THIRD in a series! How on earth did this happen? Are we, as a culture, so starved for entertainment that we have financed THREE different films whose main source of “comedy” - and, boy, do I use that term loosely – is the utterly unfunny Martin Lawrence dressing up as an utterly unconvincingly woman? Is this really what we've come to?

Now, the whole cross-dressing breed of comedy is hardly a recent occurrence, nor is it an intrinsically bad one. It all started, after all, with one of the great comedy classics: Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot. While few (if any) of the film's that followed it have come close to reaching the levels reached and set by Wilder and co, it's hard to imagine a film doing a greater disservice to the comic conventions established by that film then Big Momma's: Like Father Like Son.

And yet, the “creators” of this monstrosity have taken the insult one step further by constantly referencing Some Like It Hot – not least by essentially stealing Wilder's plot wholesale. As if it wasn't bad enough that greats like Billy Wilder, Marilyn Munroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon are no longer with us, Lawrence and friends effectively dancing on their graves is almost too much to bare.

If this sounds unfair and overly harsh, it's only because this film deserves ever last bit of bile and venomous hatred that it has so rightly been receiving. Granted, it's nowhere near as hateful as it could have been – and it's certainly nowhere near as ill-advised as Gun or as mean spirited as the upcoming Night Drive – but its obvious contempt for the intelligence of its audience is really, really difficult to stomach.

There's no two ways about it: the writers, director, producers and main star responsible for this abomination of good cinematic comedy obviously see us film-goers as a bunch of meat-headed Neanderthals with all the cumulative sense of humour of a stalk of celery. Everything about this film is insulting. It's insulting to believe that anyone would believe in any of the so-called characters. It's insulting to believe that anyone would be taken in by the film's ham-fisted sentimentality. It's insulting to believe that anyone would go along with any of the insane plot contrivances that are liberally splattered all over the film (how is the make-up of two idiots on the run this convincing and why oh why oh why would any man be attracted to MARTIN LAWRENCE IN DRAG?). But most of all, it's insulting to believe that anyone would laugh at any of this.

Let me put it this way and leave it at that: Big Momma's: Like Father Like Son is less funny than all of those films nominated in the best film category at this year's Oscars. Winter's Bone (remember that? The very bleak film about this dirt poor teenage girl trying to look after her broken family while looking for her deadbeat – or just plain dead - dad) has more laughs than this.

Oh, Martin Lawrence what will you get up to next? For all of our sakes, might I suggest carpentry? Or even a career as a living statue? Anything really – but, please, for all that is good and right and beautiful in this world, PUT AWAY THAT BLOODY FAT-WOMAN-SUIT AND STOP MAKING BIG MOMMA'S MOVIES! Thank you.