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Madea's Family Reunion
Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 18
  3. Negative: 4 out of 18
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    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.
  2. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Chuck Wilson
    70
    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.
  3. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Chris Jones
    63
    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.
  4. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    63
    Too long and its tone is disconcertingly uneven, but Perry never betrays or condescends to his characters.
  5. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jim Ridley
    60
    Perry's vaudevillian shamelessness and indifference to committee-approved taste are energizing and frequently jaw-dropping.
  6. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    60
    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.
  7. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    50
    Neither good nor so-bad-it's-good, Perry's odd oeuvre has an allure all its own.
  8. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    50
    Perry makes sure villains get their comeuppance, while heroines get big, frilly weddings - with God, and an imperious Maya Angelou - presiding over it all.
  9. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    50
    Perry is a playwright, and his dialogue here is usually entertaining.
  10. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Anita Gates
    50
    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.
  11. Variety
    Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    50
    Tyler Perry offers another blithely unbalanced mix of low comedy, sudsy sentiment and spiritual uplift in Madea's Family Reunion.
  12. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    50
    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.
  13. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    40
    When you've got Maya Angelou and Cicely Tyson in the kitchen, laying on the sophomoric laughs is just plain stupid.
  14. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Gene Seymour
    40
    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.
  15. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    38
    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.
  16. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    25
    A disappointing sequel to the far funnier "Diary of a Mad Black Woman."
  17. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Matthew Sorrento
    20
    All the while Madea's wit, which is refreshing on the stage, feels spurious and often misfires.
  18. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Jennie Punter
    12
    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.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 40 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 21
  3. Negative: 5 out of 21
  1. BrendanT.
    7
    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.… Full Review »
  2. ShelleyN.
    10
    It was awsome. I love Madea she is so funny. The movie made a lot of good points.
  3. MarkB.
    8
    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?… Full Review »
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