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Madea's Family Reunion
Lions Gate Films

Madea's Family Reunion reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 45 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.5 out of 10
based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 39 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic material, domestic violence, sex and drug references

Starring Lynn Whitfield, Tyler Perry, Blair Underwood, Boris Kodjoe, Maya Angelou, Jenifer Lewis, Keke Palmer, Rochelle Aytes, and Cicely Tyson

Based upon Tyler Perry's acclaimed stage production, Madea's Family Reunion continues the adventures of southern matriarch Madea begun in the hit film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. (Lionsgate)


GENRE(S): Comedy  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Tyler Perry (also play)  
DIRECTED BY: Tyler Perry  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: June 27, 2006 
Theatrical: February 24, 2006 
RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Let's not sell Tyler Perry short. As the vinegar-witted Madea, he's a drag performer of testy charm, but in his overlit patchwork way he's also making the most primal women's pictures since Joan Crawford flexed her shoulder pads.
Read Full Review
70
LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Madea's a riot, but what makes this richer, more textured follow-up to "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" so fascinating is the way Perry - a first-time director adapting his own hit play - shifts on a dime from a silly fart joke scene to one of intense, Sirkian melodrama.
Read Full Review
63
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Too long and its tone is disconcertingly uneven, but Perry never betrays or condescends to his characters.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Tribune Chris Jones
Gussied up for the big time, Perry now is aiming himself squarely at a mainstream, middle-class female audience -- with some sops for their dates.
Read Full Review
60
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Perry's soap opera story lines are awful, with their nobly suffering sistas, gorgeous do-right men, and shamelessly materialistic dream endings. But the movie's message of gospel joy and racial pride couldn't be more sincere, and Perry gives an impeccable comic performance as the title character.
Read Full Review
60
Village Voice Jim Ridley
Perry's vaudevillian shamelessness and indifference to committee-approved taste are energizing and frequently jaw-dropping.
Read Full Review
50
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Madea's Family Reunion represents an advance on Diary, if only because it dials down Madea's shtick (she no longer waves a gun around) and irons out some of those awkward tonal transitions. The chance that Perry's followers will leave disappointed is approximately 0 percent.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Joe Leydon
Tyler Perry offers another blithely unbalanced mix of low comedy, sudsy sentiment and spiritual uplift in Madea's Family Reunion.
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Perry makes sure villains get their comeuppance, while heroines get big, frilly weddings - with God, and an imperious Maya Angelou - presiding over it all.
Read Full Review
50
The New York Times Anita Gates
Both Ms. Angelou and Ms. Tyson deliver powerful, touching messages. Just as they're sinking in, the film turns into an unabashed chick flick with a painfully gaudy wedding that includes live angels hanging on wires from the ceiling.
Read Full Review
50
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Perry is a playwright, and his dialogue here is usually entertaining.
Read Full Review
50
The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
Neither good nor so-bad-it's-good, Perry's odd oeuvre has an allure all its own.
Read Full Review
40
Los Angeles Times Gene Seymour
Reunion is an awkward compound of paradoxical tones and ideas... But one shouldn't underestimate Perry's ability to make such contradictions work and get away with the most wretched excess.
Read Full Review
40
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
When you've got Maya Angelou and Cicely Tyson in the kitchen, laying on the sophomoric laughs is just plain stupid.
Read Full Review
38
New York Post Kyle Smith
Too bad the story is so predictable and the big wedding scene, in which women dressed as angels dangle from the church ceiling strumming harps, is cornier than an Orville Redenbacher factory.
Read Full Review
25
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
A disappointing sequel to the far funnier "Diary of a Mad Black Woman."
Read Full Review
20
Film Threat Matthew Sorrento
All the while Madea's wit, which is refreshing on the stage, feels spurious and often misfires.
Read Full Review
12
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter
What ends up on screen is confused storytelling that tries to solve too many social and family problems, sends mixed messages and, even worse, makes you laugh during parts when it's trying to be dead serious.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 39 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Brendan T. gave it a7:
I'd have given it a 9 if not for the fact I watched the DVD version of Madea Goes to Jail prior to watching the DVD verison of this movie. For those who saw 'Madea Goes to Jail' and haven't seen 'Reuinion' the movie, let's just say Mr. Perry decided to recyle alot of lines from it. Also, unlike 'Diary' the movie does not have the same story as its on-stage counterpart. Having seen all of his Madea movies this one was prettymuch 'Reunion' 'Jail' and 'I Can Do Bad All By Myself' rolled in one. For those who haven't seen his other work you might want to skip the next two paragraphs, as they contain MAJOR Spoilers. [***SPOILERS***] Unlike the on-stage version there is an actual reunion but it's not at Madea's house. As in the original the planned marriage never takes place but another couple gets married instead. From 'I can do by all by Myself' Tyler recycled the scenario in which one family member reveals she was raped as a child with her mother's consent. Tyler even went so far as to spoil some of the plot to 'Madea Goes to Jail' by introducing a little girl who must live with her by order of a judge. It's volintary in 'Jail' but what she does and says in 'Reunion' the movie is not much different. Those aside, I can say this is movie calls on Black America to unify itself and stop killing and hurting each other. This was made obvious during the actual reunion but it the message was loud and clear throughout. Like 'Diary' the movie Madea plays comic relief and appears in less than half of the movie. Once again, Tyler plays the role of 3 on-screen characters (Madea, Joe and Brian) and during scenes in which two of them are talking to each other in the same frame, he uses a double to play Madea or Joe. Brian plays Madea's lawyer and Joe can be considered the movie version of Mr. Brown from the on-stage productions. The adding of new characters still does not take away from the fact that Madea's on-stage daughter Cora was absent from the film. I say that because she is a major character in the on-stage version and with her absent from the movie it slowed the momentum quite a bit. Overall, if you've never seen the plays you'll love this movie but if like me you've been following Tyler Perry from his early days you might be disappointed with the recycled material.

Shelley N. gave it a10:
It was awsome. I love Madea she is so funny. The movie made a lot of good points.

Mark B. gave it an8:
Lions Gate (excuse me, Lionsgate) has got to be the smartest, most market-savvy studio currently operating in Hollywood! Never mind that their relentless, under-the-radar stealth campaign for Crash impressed the Motion Picture Academy more than the somewhat strident and arrogant "this is a cultural phenomenon, and therefore your ONLY viable choice, dammit" psuedo-strategy employed by Focus Features for Brokeback Mountain. (I would've been happy with EITHER movie taking home the big prize.) These guys also knew that the time was right in fall 2004 for a truly "hard-R" horror movie (Saw, which started not only its own franchise but a profitable if regrettable new trend); they grabbed onto a seeming hot potato of a documentary that they realized had great appeal to 49% of the voting public (Fahrenheit 9/11); and with just two Number One movies they transformed a playwright/actor that much of the moviegoing public had never even heard of 18 months ago into one of the few writers whose name alone, like Stephen King's SOMETIMES is, into a real box office draw. As he did with last year's Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Tyler Perry once again gives us a rambunctious, hugely entertaining (and, if you're not a fan, highly schizophrenic) tossed salad of soap opera melodramatics, social commentary, swoony romance, Sunday sermon, African-American wake-up call, and low comedy, with Perry himself providing much of the latter in front of the camera as ne'er-do-well Joe (a distant spiritual cousin to Fred Sanford) and no-nonsense matriarch Madea. Some viewers find Perry's clashing tones jarring and unwatchable; I find his sheer unpredictability bracing and exhiliarating. Where else can you see a movie that gives you in one big package a searing family drama involving rape and incest, a deliciously down-and-dirty conversation between the two villains (played by Lynn Whitfield and Blair Underwood like neither has had so much fun in front of a camera ever at any time) that without the Freudian undertones could've come out of a 1947 Joan Crawford movie, a serious address to the Black community delivered by Maya Angelou and Cicely Tyson, and a bunch of fart jokes? To paraphrase Sally Field, this is the cinematic equivalent of the box of chocolates Forrest Gump was talking about! (My only reservation in this category--and maybe this is a cultural thing--is that I felt uncomfortable watching Perry rightly denounce spousal abuse one moment and then present the whipping of a child to within an inch of her life as the best way to get her to clean up her act the next.) Perry's first outing as a movie director is a surprisingly assured and successful one: he reveals a shocking truth about a major character skillfully and to maximum effect, and I enjoyed his not-exactly-subtle but not-quite-heavyhanded use of colors to suggest and sustain mood: fiery, dangerous reds in scenes involving a deceitful, manipulative mother; warm browns and other earth tones in Madea's household; ethereal whites and blues in a wedding sequence. Perry's work is expanding beyond the African-American audiences that previously made up nearly his entire fan base not only owing to his skill as a very effective, entertaining storyteller, but also because Madea herself is one of those universally recognizable characters that everyone either knows or would sure like to. Be honest: wouldn't YOU love to have someone in your extended family who always tells you the truth, provides a place of comfort and refuge whenever you need it, and either beats the living bejeebers out of your enemies or teaches YOU how to do it?

Deidre L. gave it a10:
I loved this movie, Medea was funny. The movie had a great overall message to it. I would definitely go and see it again.

Laura M. gave it a5:
I laughed a lot, had some good points made on moral issues. Hated the scene where the abused fiancee threw grits on to be husband, could be a bit more creative and not so predictable. The wedding scene did not inspired me to say the least.

Jada G. gave it a10:
I was surprised. Absolutely fantastic.

Anna W. gave it an8:
Tyker Perry addressed issues that are prevalant to African American families. He let his characters mature. Spoon fed his audience wisdom.

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