Summary
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming is likely the best of the entire series, even if that is a low bar to hurdle.
This review of Netflix film Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming does not contain spoilers.
The Madea character we have come to know first made their appearance in 2005 with Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman. The movie was not a huge box office hit and wasn’t critically acclaimed either. However, something about Madea just worked, and from then to now, this raunchy and foul-mouthed mother, grandmother, and great grandmother has become one of the most consistent characters in film history.
Over the past 17 years, there have been 12 films following the exuberant life of Madea and her family full of love, loss, and a whole lot of hallelujah. Over the years, the films in the Madea filmography have kept growing in scale, but in Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming the switch is flipped and Perry goes back to what has worked for Madea in the past — a smaller story that lets Madea come loose.
Now under the giant Netflix blanket, Tyler Perry isn’t restricted to PG-13 ratings that were meant to help the film at the box office. No, in this film Madea, and the family as a whole, is able to come loose in ways we have never seen from the character. This small change in scenery allows Madea to be the funniest she’s been in the franchise.
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming brings the family back together for the graduation of her great-grandson, Tim. However, when Tim arrives at Madea’s home he is accompanied by his roommate and best friend Davi (pronounced dah-vee). Davi gets his own characterization later in the film, but his main reason for being in the movie is to cross over Madea with another foul-mouthed elderly woman from across the pond, Mrs. Brown, played by Brendan O’Carroll from the show Mrs. Brown’s Boys.
Where this movie shines is through Madea. Whether it is through constant f-bombs, or any other word under the sun, or her possessions of both guns and marijuana, Madea is finally unlocked. This is a good thing for Perry and the character because he isn’t limited to what she, or anyone else in the cast, can say or do. The comedic timing really, for the most part, works, and Perry and O’Carroll play off each other better than they probably should have.
The genuine humorous moments make it hard to outright dislike the film, but everything else surrounding it makes it pretty easy. I know no one goes into a Madea movie looking for the next Oscar-winning masterpiece, but there needs to be something else to latch on to. There is a really tender moment between Tim and his family which shows how much they, and any family, should love each other, but there is also a sub-plot with Davi that was… confusing. A Madea Homecoming is a movie about how a family should love each other no matter what, and how true love is worth fighting for, but they should have centered more on Tim’s storyline rather than include Davi’s.
The inclusion of Davi’s storyline felt like it, as I mentioned, was just to bring in the Brown family, and to cause a rift in Madea’s family. It just never fully felt developed, even for this kind of film. There also were moments of humor that didn’t land quite as they should. Anytime it seemed like they were acting at the moment, it had a chance to be funny, but there were some jokes that were far too on-the-nose and ingenuine that kept me from truly investing within the film.
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming is likely the best of the entire series, even if that is a low bar to hurdle. There are some genuine laughs, but this still isn’t a great film. It’s more of a showcase of Tyler Perry’s comedic timing as Madea, and how vulgarly funny he can actually be, way more than it is a good movie.
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