MOVIE REVIEW: The 'Big Mommas' Have Overstayed Their Welcome

FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) is at the top of his game.

His stepson Trent (Brandon T. Jackson) recently was accepted to Duke University. Trent wanted to put off college to pursue a career as a rapper, but his life forever changes when he shows up at the wrong place at the wrong time and witnesses Russian mob boss Chirkoff (Tony Curran) kill an informant.

Chirkoff wanted to obtain a flash drive that contained evidence against himself which the informant hid in an all-girls performing arts school. Malcolm and Trent then go undercover as the new housemother "Big Momma" and her great niece Charmaine. Can these two fight off a beautiful young singer and an overzealous plus-size woman-loving security guard while recovering the flash drive before Chirkoff discovers it?

“Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son” was quite disappointing. The third time wasn’t charming at all. You can tell an instant that this film was aimed at the high school crowd.

The plot is a thing that makes you go, “What were they thinking when they wrote the film?” I could come up with a better plot than recovering a flash drive. Where is the action in that? This film relies on jokes and pratfalls to make us laugh but the comedic timing is somehow lost in the process. 

There were moments where the film tries to capture the wave of “Glee” and timeless classic high school musical “Fame” with disastrous results.

One example was when Trent/ Charmaine falls off the stage while dancing and landed on Big Momma stating “The Nutcracker” line we heard in the previews. It would have made sense if the class were dancing to the works of Tchaikovsky, instead it was the sounds of Sembello. Can we say a good pop culture reference ruined?  

Brandon T. Jackson was not the right actor to portray stepson Trent and he did not look the part of a high school student. My theory about a movie really doing well is to never replace the actors in a role that has set the movie series or your movie will tank. I guess Big Momma missed that memo.

The only good thing that salvages this film from being a total failure is the budding friendship of Haley to Charmaine with the blossoming romance to Haley as Trent. Jackson and Jessica Lucas pull it off so well that your heart goes out to them.

A special message to our former Maryland native, PLEASE bring us the true, original comedy back. The comedies where you made us laugh, not this mindless series that should have had its padding unstuffed years ago. Do us all a favor; leave the drag to the professionals.

GRADE: D

"Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son" a Twentieth Century Fox release, is rated PG-13 for sexual humor and brief violence. Running time: 107 minutes