Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

The_Film_Cricket Ten seconds into Peeples, I realized that I had boarded as sinking ship. In the opening scene, Craig Robinson is revealed to be a guy who sings to kids at the library, but the song he's singing is called "Speak It! - Don't Leak It!" which, if I understood correctly, is a song that encourages the kids to express their emotions rather than urinating on things. Why? Why sing that song? What is the message? Why would anyone allow him to sing that song? I know I'm being over-analytical but it gets the movie started on the wrong foot. What's worse is that this song provides the movie's payoff.Peeples is an unbearable comedy; a movie hammered together out of spare parts from better comedies and laid out on a foundation borrowed from failed sitcoms. It has the kind of dialogue that sounds weird without a laugh track and a plot that ebbs toward Meet the Parents but doesn't even bother to come up with any jokes or any genuine feeling for any of the characters. It's a shooting gallery, a joke is set up and knocked down. There is no attempt to pull the comedy from human nature.Robinson plays Wade Walker a nice guy from New York with designs on being a child therapist. For some time he's been dating Grace (Kerry Washington), and wants to take their relationship to the next level. Wade wants so badly to propose that he walks around with the ring in his pocket 24/7. There's just one little hitch: Grace hasn't told her family that she's dating him. Why? Simple. The plot needs her to keep Wade a secret so all kinds of hi-jinks can take place over the course of a weekend. She's headed off the Sag Harbor for a Moby Dick celebration (you can guess where that idea is going) but wants him to stay behind.Not to be outdone, Wade crashes the proceedings and hi-jinks ensue. Grace's family is a bizarre mix, and not in the good way. Her mother Daphne (S. Epatha Merkerson) is a former disco diva who overcomes her alcoholism by smoking pot. Her sister (Kali Hawk) is a CNN anchor and closeted lesbian who travels around with her camerawoman/partner Meg (Kimrie Lewis-Davis) but hasn't given the news to the family even though Meg spouts poetry at the dinner table about being intimate with her. Her brother Simon (Tyler James Williams) is a math genius and kleptomaniac with designs on being a thug. Then there's Virgil (David Alan Grier) a federal judge who is a perfectionist and a lion when it comes to protecting the family – even in places where it isn't needed. He's a bitter old snort who regards Wade like a cockroach.I don't know exactly how to describe the next 90 minutes. It's the kind of disjointed, unfunny series of shenanigans and hi-jinks that would kill a sitcom in the pilot. The jokes are designed to make Wade look like a jerk while we wait for all of the family's secrets to come spilling out of the closet. What is troubling is that the movie has no narrative flow. It feels like just a series of set-ups and put-downs that seem to have been written by different people on different days and then just hammered into the script.There are plot points here that are brought up and have nothing to do with anything. For example, Wade hears that Virgil is going to play at a local jazz club. He goes to the club and finds that Virgil isn't there. He looks for him and finds him headed for a nude beach. The joke, of course, is that Wade is devastated to have seen Virgil's testicles. But the scene goes nowhere. He returns to the house, doesn't tell Grace about it and then it's not brought up again until a vague explanation at the end. There's no comedic payoff and the scene is just left laying there. There are at least ten scenes like this, but no attempt to really deal with anything. The movie shoves the characters through a series of comic sketches but the screenwriters seem to timid or too lazy to deal with these people as people. What's worse is that there is a genuine bad feeling from this cast. No one seems to want to be here. The characters are written as petty and hostile and indifferent to one another. This movie is an unpleasant experience.So, is the movie funny? No. I smiled once, at a line from Robinson about Uncle Ben and Bojangles. Other than that, I mostly regarded this film with blistering indifference. Doing research before the movie, I wasn't surprised to find that Peeples is a Tyler Perry production. Perry is this century's P.T. Barnum, a talentless charlatan who has turned a lack of any writing or filmmaking skill into a billion dollar enterprise. People flock to his movies presumably to have a good time but what Perry gives them is the same kind of garbage that the audience would turn off if they caught it on television.Thus far, I've seen three films that he's been involved with - Tyler Perry's Single Moms Club, Tyler Perry's Temptation and Peeples (I don't count Star Trek) - and I find them painfully unwatchable. All three seemed to have been written and produced with the kind of grace and ingenuity of that urination song that Robinson sings at the beginning. This movie is aggressively bad.

brchthethird Even though the trailer I saw for this looked pretty good, I wasn't exactly expecting too much given this was produced by Tyler Perry. Thankfully I can report that while his influence can be felt, this movie stays away from the overt messaging and preachiness of his other work (directing, mostly). To concisely describe this movie, it's like an African-American version of MEET THE PARENTS, although it isn't quite as funny. The humor comes in fits and spurts, but when it does come it is really hilarious. The plot also feels kind of episodic, moving towards a finale that you can see coming a mile away. Still, the journey there is quite an entertaining one. The acting is just fine for this kind of material, and Craig Robinson does bring this nice everyman comic persona to the film, but I thought that David Alan Grier and Malcolm Barrett (playing Craig Robinson's brother) were the standouts here. Kerry Washington also does a nice job, although this isn't some of her best work. Some other downsides include a rather trite treatment of homosexuality (one of the Peeple daughters is a lesbian) and the way the plot is tied up in a nice ribbon at the end almost too quickly. However, the camaraderie and chemistry in the cast is palpable and this makes all of the shortcomings liveable. Overall, given its rather lukewarm reception, I feel that this is an underrated gem and one of the better entries in Tyler Perry's filmography.

merle moran What kind of judge has a huge estate that rivals anything available in Beverly Hills, CA? Has he got something going on the side? We never know. The premise of the film is thin and moves at break-neck speed, perhaps so viewers won't recognize the story-line is bereft of focus. There's little for the viewer to connect with.The rookie director just didn't bring out actor-ability or premise texture. You just wanted to grind ahead, hoping something up front would be better than the humorless scenes that passed. Even Tyler Williams (from TV's "Everybody Hates Chris") seemed out of place and overdone. The film really needed the likes of ice Cube to loosen it up and send it on a much more plausible and amusing entertainment trip.A funny film?? Who says? ~mm

sydstevens I judge a comedy by how much I laugh. I laughed a lot at this one—the out loud, while alone kind. To me, that's the best kind.Craig Robinson and Kerry Washington do a great job at portraying a modern, all- American couple, without seeming disingenuous or losing their swagger. Robinson is subtly hilarious. I can see how some reviewers would miss just how funny he actually is because his brand of humor is repartee and not constantly in-you-face. (His "Where's the beef?" line is the perfect example of a had-to-improvised gem.) Washington is the perfect leading lady—convincing in anything she does and great to look at. She continues to show breadth as an actress, handling this "lite" comedic role with ease and grace.For those who don't quite get it, for this film think Seth Rogen and Sarah Jessica Parker with more depth. Watch it, then you'll be onto something.