Critic Reviews

• Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic

  Nothing that happens seems the least bit believable, and everything is brash and loud. All that's missing is the laugh track.

• Jim Ridley, Village Voice

  Perry's vaudevillian shamelessness and indifference to committee-approved taste are energizing and frequently jaw-dropping.

• Christy Lemire, Associated Press

  Tyler Perry's heart is in the right place, but he still has a tin ear.

• Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

  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.

• Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle

  Family Reunion doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy or a drama and ends up as mostly a melodrama with scenes that would be embarrassing on a soap opera.

• Anita Gates, New York Times

  This movie's trailers promise a slapstick comedy about an obese black woman who takes no guff and enjoys beating people up. It isn't exactly, and that's a disappointment.

• Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy

  The dysfunctional script and operatically excessive direction ... land someplace closer to outsider art than bad moviedom.

• Matthew Sorrento, Film Threat

  All the while Madea's wit, which is refreshing on the stage, feels spurious and often misfires.

• Ethan Alter, Film Journal International

  If there's one thing that Reunion doesn't lack, it's good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions don't automatically guarantee a good movie.

• Kam Williams, BlackFilm.com

  A Tyler Perry tour de force!

• LaTonya Taylor, Christianity Today

  Although his work isn't high art and is occasionally problematic, he's telling stories that aren't often told. And for that, this black woman can't be too mad at him.

• David Cornelius, DVDTalk.com

  While not nearly as offensive or dim-witted as Diary, this one's still a gigantic mess.

• John Beifuss, Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

  It's interesting that nobody ever connects the dots between Madea's frequent corporal punishment of children (which is presented as instructive comedy) and the abusive grownups who function as Perry's villains.

• Christy Lemire, Deseret News, Salt Lake City

  At times it feels as if Perry made three separate films, dumped them in a blender and hit the puree button.

• Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

  Perry is a shameless panderer and his movie is cliché-ridden, rudimentary, completely unfocused and about as subtle as a wind-breaking contest in church.

• Scott Tobias, AV Club

  Though Perry's films are hard to defend on aesthetic grounds -- the crazy shifts in tone from operatic melodrama to broad comedy could cause seizures -- it's equally hard to begrudge the underserved audiences who embrace them so passionately.

• Jackie K. Cooper, jackiekcooper.com

  Tyler Perry still hasn't found the formula for combining comedy and drama

• James Brundage, Filmcritic.com

  Both of the villains are so far over the top they should be in the summer Olympics.

• James Hill, BET.com

  Is "Madea" a postive move? You bet. Positively insulting to anyone who's graduated middle school and read at least one book since.

• Mark Palermo, Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

  The spousal abuse storyline might have some gravity if the movie didn't simultaneously make a joke of child abuse.

Read all 21 critic reviews