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Big Mommas: Like Father Like Son |
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After a five-year absence, actor Martin Lawrence is back as FBI agent Malcolm Turner. And, of course, as "Big Momma," his supersized, undercover-granny alias. This time around, his wannabe rapper stepson, Trent, complicates life by getting tangled up in a sting operation. After the 17-year-old witnesses a murder committed by a kingpin named Chirkoff, Malcolm and Trent end up with a pack of thugs hot on their trail.
 How to lose them? Why, go undercover. As women. At a women's college.
Cloaked beneath padding, wigs, makeup and yards of latex, the drag-clad duo flees to the Georgia Girls' School for the Arts in Atlanta, where Malcolm suspects a flash drive containing evidence against Chirkoff might be hidden. Big Momma soon takes a job as house mother for nubile coeds, and Trent becomes a plus-sized teen named Charmaine … who salivates over just about every one of the aforementioned female students. Especially a pianist named Haley.
Big Momma is looking to put Chirkoff and his cruel crew away for good. So to gain full access to search the campus for the missing flash drive, Momma befriends maintenance man Curtis Cool, who in turn acts as if "her" rotundity is a divine gift from above.
Only two questions remain: Whether Malcolm will find the evidence he's looking for … and whether Malcolm and Trent will ever be able to look each other in the eyes as men again.
:: Review
In 2006, Plugged In senior editor Bob Smithouser began his review of Big Momma's House 2 thusly: "Big Momma's House 2 isn't awful, but it is lazy and clichéd." Allow me to repurpose and edit that assessment for 2011: "Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son is awful, lazy and clichéd."
In fact, this film is so awful, lazy and clichéd—at press time, the movie's approval rating among critics at rottentomatoes.com hovered just above zero, at an abysmal 4%—that one wonders why its makers felt the need to produce it at all. The answer, of course, is to milk this semiprofitable franchise starring an African-American comedian in drag (haven't we seen this before?) at least one more time.
In a recent interview with popeater.com, Martin Lawrence admitted he'll keep making Big Momma films until audiences stop showing up. "We're going to ride this until the wheels fall off," he said. "If the fans enjoy it and like it and they're entertained and they're getting what they want, then there's no telling where we can go with it. And if this is the last one, well, I had a fun ride."
Never mind that such sentiments don't jibe with what I saw as the film ended: Martin Lawrence suddenly realizing that his dressing up as an obese elderly woman is not only not funny, it's actually offensive. Then promising never to make another Big Momma movie ever again.
Oh wait. That's just how I wish things had ended.
I can only hope that Lawrence's prophecy about the wheels coming off this tired franchise happens sooner rather than later, and that this might indeed be Big Momma's last ride.
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